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
Plot Quality Fields:
Plot Validation Level
(2) classification plot: sufficient for inclusion in a classification revision
Overall Plot Vegetation Fields:
Tree Cover
90
%
Shrub Cover
30
%
Field Cover
15
%
Nonvascular Cover
1
%
Misc Fields:
Observation Narrative
A post logging mesotrophic forest about 90 years old, on a steep, north-facing lower slope of a cove at a lower elevation on a very stony loamy sand. Though the bedrock geology of this site has been mapped as shale, the texture if the soil and the appearance of the stones mixed in the soil suggest the soil is not shale-derived, as does the presence of Liriodendron, which is largely absent from the shale country. The prominence of Liriodendron tulipifera is characteristic of first generation forests after logging and/or chestnut blight on mesic, more fertile sites below 3000 ft and outside of the shale country. This community is strongly associated in the study area with more or less, rocky, steep lower to middle ravine slopes with NNW to NE aspects, and on steep, lower slopes of sheltered concave hollows on other aspects, over the predominantly sandstone formations from 3000 ft down to the transition to shaly soils. Here, as at many other sites, it grades upslope quickly into a heavily Quercus montana- and heath-dominated forest.
Plot located ca. 1.2 mi NNE of Morning Knob, ca. 350 ft north of intersection of Rt. 600 and FR 456.
