will cross five soil orders, four of them having natural or 

 partly natural vegetation. The soils within and contiguous 

 to the South Minnesott Ridge natural area are somewhat less 

 diverse, since no Alfisol is present in the transect. 



VEGETATION 



The pine-dominated natural communities along Minnesott 

 Ridge contain the most diverse species assemblages found in 

 Pamlico County. This diversity is consistent with the fact 

 that herb and shrub dominated pine flatwoods, which cover 

 most of both natural areas, are among the most diverse of 

 southeastern Coastal Plain natural communities. The com- 

 munities on the Ridge respond strongly to soil conditions, 

 and beginning with the more hydric, are described here in 

 two broad groups reflecting wetness of the soil upon which 

 the communities occur. 



The wettest soils are the Rutlege and Leon series. 

 Rutlege occupies the lowest swales on the surface of Minnesott 

 Ridge, including narrow linear units which possibly comprise 

 poorly formed local drainageways . Rutlege soils are also 

 present in the two small Carolina bays within North Minnesott 

 Ridge natural area. Leon soils typically border areas of 

 Rutlege, but are slightly higher, and derive their wet 

 character from spodic horizons which impede internal soil 

 drainage. Together, these two series form approximately 75 

 percent of the two natural areas. The vegetation is similar 

 over each of these two series: wet, pine-dominated stands with 

 a dense shrub layer, which are examples of the shrub-dominated 

 pine flatwoods natural community (CT 1; CT 2). 



Although not often thought of as wetlands, these diverse 

 communities are strongly correlated with and dependent upon 

 soils which are wet, due either to landscape position or to 

 moisture-trapping spodic horizons. At other times of the year 

 the soils, Spodosols particularly, can be very droughty. Hence 

 the pine flatwoods communities must be adapted to severe seasonal 

 extremes of both wetness and aridity. Fire is also a dominant 

 ecological force shaping the pine flatwoods, as it has been 

 historically and prehistorically in various southern pine forest 

 types. 



The wet shrub phase pine flatwoods over Leon soils are 

 dominated by an open to scattered canopy of longleaf pine, 

 ( Pinus palustris ) . Other species are essentially absent 

 from the canopy, excepting pond pine ( Pinus serotina ) , 

 which occurs as scattered individuals at the edges of long- 



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