Name:
Quercus michauxii - Quercus laurifolia - Liquidambar styraciflua Floodplain Forest Group
Reference:
NatureServe Biotics 2019
Description:
This wetland forest group is a very broad one, in its environmental amplitude, its floristic diversity, and its biogeographic range. It is primarily affiliated with the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains from Virginia to Texas, and the Mississippi River Alluvial Plain and adjacent Upper East Gulf Coastal Plain from Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky south to Mississippi and Louisiana, but it also includes wetland, swamp, and riparian forests of the southern Piedmont from Virginia to Alabama. This group primarily encompasses vegetation dominated by members of the genus <i>Quercus</i>, along with <i>Liquidambar styraciflua, Ulmus</i> spp., and other trees, being generally known as bottomland hardwood forests. It primarily encompasses communities of streams and rivers of all orders and sizes, as well as some forests of isolated wetlands, including depression ponds. This group includes forests known as "blackwater" as well as "brownwater" examples. Some characteristic components of blackwater forests include <i>Nyssa biflora</i>, as well as <i>Quercus laurifolia, Quercus lyrata, Quercus nigra, Pinus taeda</i>, and <i>Magnolia virginiana</i> in higher portions of the floodplain. <i>Nyssa aquatica</i> is generally scarce or absent. Brownwater examples are also likely to contain <i>Platanus occidentalis, Celtis laevigata, Fraxinus pennsylvanica, Acer negundo</i>, and others. These stands also may include <i>Quercus laurifolia, Quercus michauxii, Quercus pagoda</i>, and sometimes <i>Liquidambar styraciflua</i>. There is also some floristic variation between shorter and longer hydroperiod examples. <i>Quercus michauxii, Quercus pagoda</i>, and <i>Quercus shumardii</i> are characteristic of shorter hydroperiod examples, and <i>Quercus laurifolia, Quercus lyrata, Quercus phellos</i>, and <i>Nyssa biflora</i> of longer hydroperiod ones.<br /><br />Except in the very wet examples, understory, shrub and herb layers are generally well-developed and woody vines are also prominent. <i>Arundinaria gigantea</i> is a common understory component in these forests on natural levees and higher point bars, and may become dominant after thinning or removal of the overstory. Sandbars dominated by <i>Salix</i> spp. and/or <i>Populus</i> spp. may have an open-canopy (woodland) structure.<br /><br />Most vegetation placed here is associated with rivers and streams, but some are referred to as "flatwoods." It includes riverfront vegetation, which is generally temporarily (but rarely seasonally) flooded, on point bars and natural levees adjacent to the river that formed them, as well as high bottomlands, some low bottomlands, as well as levees, ridges, terraces, and some sloughs and abandoned channel segments. These features are large and well-defined in larger river systems, but the forests of smaller floodplains and bottomlands are not differentiated by these depositional landforms, because these features are small and flooding regimes are variable. The hydrologic regime and the hydroperiod are also highly diverse in this group of forests.
Accession Code:
urn:lsid:vegbank.org:commConcept:39762-{DC16239A-0749-431F-AD10-1A013638B8E2}
Plot-observations of this Community Concept:
0
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