Isolated National Park Service land. The only access is crossing the river or getting private land access and dropping over the gorge slope. This community occurs as islands in canopy gaps. The community is surrounded by breaks of Platanus occidentalis - Robinia pseudoacacia- Juglans nigra / Lindera benzoin / Verbesina alternifolia woodland forest. These two communities have thus far occurred mosaiced together with an occasional Platanus occidentalis- Betula nigra / Verbesina alternifolia patch. The river is north ca. 100m. The steep rich gorge slope is ca. 150m to the south.;These are open sunny herbaceous gaps dominated by Japanese hops. The area is a monoculture with the hops growing up, on, and over low growing trees and shrubs. It is veraciously maintaining the openings. It has over 100% coverage because it even grows over itself. The soils here are loose and fluffy sandy and silt loams with near neutral pH. ideal growing conditions which the Humulus is exploiting. The area most likely floods at least every few years and was likely farmed at one time.
Representativeness
Small patch of an early successional herbaceous vine community. The community is almost a monoculture of Humulus japonicus. Similar to an observation point from earlier this spring from the Bluestone State Park access on an island along river righ (BLUE
