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
1500
m²
Plot Quality Fields:
Plot Validation Level
(2) classification plot: sufficient for inclusion in a classification revision
Overall Plot Vegetation Fields:
Tree Height
17
m
Shrub Height
6
m
Field Height
5
m
Tree Cover
5
%
Shrub Cover
20
%
Field Cover
1
%
Nonvascular Cover
20
%
Misc Fields:
Observation Narrative
Small ridge with high point of local relief supports the closest vegetation to that of a classic pine/turkey oak sandhill yet discovered at South Quay. The heath layer that is so characteristically dominant and extensive elsewhere on this landscape -- and immediately surrounding plot at slightly lower landscape positions -- is conspicuously absent from this open stand with its large patches of bare or lichen-covered sand. Quercus incana appears to attain its maximum importance at South Quay on and near this ridge, whereas density of Q. laevis is notably lower than in adjacent vegetation. (Several snags of both species are present.) Number of grass-stage Pinus palustris seedlings is higher here than virtually anywhere else on this landscape. Open vegetation is almost entirely restricted to the focal 400 sq. m central section of the plot; tree density is significantly higher in residual modules, and ericaceous shrub layer begins abruptly on either side of plot. Trees were sampled at 150% to capture a larger sample of overstory P. palustris. Why such vegetation structure persists here is not obvious. This landscape position may have produced a locally more intense fire that eliminated ericaceous shrubs and mycorrhizae, or this stand may be a surviving, relictual representative of former, more extensive (though likely patchy) vegetation of higher, drier sandhills which may be more resistant to ericaceous expansion.
0 - 2 - litter (depth varies from 0-5 cm)
2 - 13 - medium to dark gray, moist, coarse sand, with abundant fine organic matter
13 - light to medium orange-brown, moist, coarse sand, becoming lighter with depth; no evidence of spodic horizon
