(lc) Merritt Hardwood Flats - 1500 acres 



(2a) North Minnesott Sand Ridge - 1250 acres 



(2b) South Minnesott Sand Ridge - 380 acres 



(3) Northwest Pocosin - 12,500 acres 



These areas are summarized in detail in the following report. 



The candidates represent several edaphic and biotic combinations. 

 Most of the areas selected have a long history of disturbance of the 

 cover vegetation by human activity; but all are considered to be re- 

 covered from past disturbance and ecologically intact; i.e. not drained, 

 having continued frequent fire in fire-adapted vegetation, etc. Some 

 of the areas are large, in keeping with the expansive and relatively 

 unbroken character of the vegetation in parts of Pamlico County, but 

 no natural area was selected on the basis of so-called "wilderness 

 values." All support some rare plant and/or animal species, but 

 none was chosen based solely on the presence of these organisms. 

 Typical questions we considered when examining a potential site were: 



(1) Does the site have regional, state or county-wide 

 significance as a natural area? 



(2) Are there unusual habitat conditions present? 



(3) Has the site recovered from (or escaped) prior 

 disturbance? 



(4) Is the site representative of a type of habitat 

 which is rapidly being converted to other land uses? 



(5) Would loss of the habitat constitute an irretrievable 

 loss of resources to Pamlico County? 



The inventory results reflect a bias toward large areas of 

 relatively undisturbed land. A chief limit inherent in the study 

 is that it was too broad; more attention should have been focused 

 on analysis of communities at specific locations. While such an 

 approach would have satisfied the desire for technically complete 

 community descriptions, it would have diverted us from our objective 

 to present useful natural areas data in the context of the county 

 and its land use patterns as a whole. We recognize that certain 

 biologically significant areas - and significant features at iden- 

 tified sites - have gone unnoted and unreported by us. We wish to 

 point out the following areas in need of further inventory: 



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