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THE VEGETATION OF COLD SPRING HARBOR, LONG 

 ISLAND. I. THE LITTORAL SUCCESSIONS 



EDGAR NELSON TRANSEAU 

 State Normal School, Charleston, Illinois 



The following notes on the vegetation of northern Long Island 

 were made during the period from June, 1906 to August, 1907. 

 It was the writer's intention to spend an additional summer in 

 checking up the records after the paper was written, but other 

 interests have made this impossible. It is now published in spite 

 of evident shortcomings as a contribution to the dynamic relations 

 of the vegetation of Long Island and as a record of certain plant 

 associations which must sooner or later be modified or destroyed 

 by the ever encroaching suburban population of New York. 



Long Island, which with Cape Cod and the intervening islands 

 forms the northern extension of the Atlantic coastal plain, is 120 

 miles long and 20 miles wide. At its western end it is separated 

 from the mainland by water channels scarcely more than a mile 

 in width. The coast of Connecticut lies from 5 to 25 miles to the 

 northward. 



The north shore of the island is marked by a range of hills ha\'- 

 ing an elevation of from 100 to 300 feet (fig. 1). From a point 

 just south of Cold Spring a second range extends eastward nearly 

 parallel with the first and about 6 miles farther inland. Between 

 these two ranges is a table-land which slopes gently to the south- 

 ward and unites through the gaps wuth the more extensive plains 

 which form the southern half of the island. The north shore is 

 precipitous and broken by narrow bays which extend several miles 

 inland. The south shore is formed by salt marshes, beyond which 

 at varying distances lie barrier beaches. The presence of a few 

 large and numerous small lakes and depressions gives much of the 

 topography a glacial aspect and adds materially to the variety of 



189 



THE PLANT WORLD, VOL. 16, NO. 7, JULY, 1913 



