releve Virginia Division of Natural Heritage, see http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural_heritage/documents/nh_plotform_instructions.pdf
Overall Taxon Cover Values are Automatically Calculated?
no
Stem Observation Area
400
m²
Plot Quality Fields:
Plot Validation Level
(2) classification plot: sufficient for inclusion in a classification revision
Overall Plot Vegetation Fields:
Tree Height
30
m
Shrub Height
6
m
Field Height
5
m
Tree Cover
90
%
Shrub Cover
65
%
Field Cover
4
%
Nonvascular Cover
0.5
%
Misc Fields:
Observation Narrative
Plot positioned in a remnant patch of older hardwoods along Dobby Creek, in a landscape otherwise disturbed by past clearing and more recent clear-cutting by DGIF. The vegetation is a medium-age, somewhat mesophytic forest of oaks and beech, under which grows a fairly dense shrub cohort of small-diameter mountain-laurel. Although oaks are currently more numerous in the overstory, oak recruitment is essentially absent and beech dominates every understory stratum. The occurrence of this forest on a southwest-facing slope is unusual. More extensive patches of similar vegetation occur nearby on the very steep, north-facing slopes along the Hardware River on the south side of Muleshoe Bend.