The roadless section of the pocosin is about six square 

 miles, or 3800 acres, in area. Except for one small deposit 

 to the south, this six-mile expanse contains the only true 

 peat deposit known in Northwest Pocosin, estimated by Otte 

 and Ingram (1980) to be about three feet thick at the maxi- 

 mum. The rest of the pocosin is underlain by mineral soils, 

 some of which have a layer of organic material ( ibid . ) . 



The soils of the Northwest Pocosin may be viewed as a 

 group of three vast concentric mapping units, with deepest 

 peats in the center ringed by progressively shallower peat, and 

 finally mineral, soils. The pocosin is domed in the center 

 with elevations slightly exceeding 40 feet above sea level, 

 dropping to about 35 feet at the edges of the natural area, 

 except along the east side , where the concentric and domed 

 arrangement is truncated sharply by the Minnesott Ridge, 

 which rises to about 45 feet adjacent to the pocosin natural 

 area. 



THE VEGETATION 



Otte (1981) proposes a basic pocosin classification which 

 relates vegetation to combined factors of peat depth, seasonal 

 wetness, and nutrient availability from underlying mineral 

 strata or some other source outside the pocosin system. Otte's 

 classification is summarized in Table 1 , and is used in the 

 following discussion of the plant communities present in the 

 Northwest Pocosin. 



Several natural communities are found in the pocosin, with 

 shorter, semi -evergreen shrub communities (Otte's high pocosin 

 type) predominant over the deepest peats, and taller pond pine 

 communities (Otte's pond pine woodland and pond pine forest) 

 occurring on the fringes of the central shrub-dominated area. 

 These communities will be described in order from deeper to 

 shallower peat sites. 



At the heart of Northwest Pocosin is an area of deepest 

 peat soils, mapped as Dare muck (dysic, thermic Typic Medisa- 

 prists; SCS, 1981). Associated with these Dare soils is the 

 relatively low, predominantly evergreen shrub community which 

 falls within the lower height range of Otte's high pocosin 

 criteria, which include: two to four feet of peat, water 

 table at the surface much of the year and rarely falling to 

 the level of the underlying mineral sediments , shrub height 

 four to eight feet, pond pines about 25 feet tall and widely 

 scattered. (Otte's classification is based on a set of grada- 



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