Natural Resources
Conservation Service
Ecological site F144AY039NY
Semi-Rich Wet Till Depressions
Accessed: 09/20/2024
General information
Provisional. A provisional ecological site description has undergone quality control and quality assurance review. It contains a working state and transition model and enough information to identify the ecological site.
MLRA notes
Major Land Resource Area (MLRA): 144A–New England and Eastern New York Upland, Southern Part
MLRA 144A: New England and Eastern New York Upland, Southern Part
The eastern half of the eastern part of this MLRA is in the Seaboard Lowland Section of the New England Province of the Appalachian Highlands. The western half of the eastern part and the southeastern half of the western part are in the New England Upland Section of the same province and division. The northwestern half of the western part is in the Hudson Valley Section of the Valley and Ridge Province of the Appalachian Highlands. This MLRA is a very scenic area of rolling to hilly uplands that are broken by many gently sloping to level valleys that terminate in coastal lowlands. Elevation ranges from sea level to 1,000 feet (0 to 305 meters) in much of the area, but it is 2,000 feet (610 meters) on some hills. Relief is mostly about 6 to 65 feet (2 to 20 meters) in the valleys and about 80 to 330 feet (25 to 100 meters) in the uplands.
This area has been glaciated and consists almost entirely of till plains and drumlins dissected by narrow valleys with a thin mantle of till. The southernmost boundary of the area marks the farthest southward extent of glaciation on the eastern seaboard. The river valleys and coastal plains are filled with glacial lake sediments, marine sediments, and glacial outwash. The bedrock in the eastern half of the area consists primarily of igneous and metamorphic rocks of early Paleozoic age. Granite is the most common igneous rock, and gneiss, schist, and slate are the most common metamorphic rocks. In the parts of the MLRA in northeastern Pennsylvania and in eastern and southeastern New York, Devonian- to Pennsylvanian-age sandstone, shale, and limestone bedrock is dominant. Carbonate rocks, primarily dolomite and limestone, are the dominant kinds of bedrock in the part of this MLRA in northwestern Connecticut.
Ecological site concept
The reference community coincides a nutrient rich Red maple – black ash / bristly buttercup forested wetland occasionally with northern white cedar, tamarack, white pine with shrubs like alderleaf buckthorn (Metzler and Barrett 2006) and a Red maple – hardwood swamp (Edinger et al. 2014). The tree canopy is dominated by red maple with other hardwoods included such as black ash, yellow birch, swamp white oak, American elm, butternut, bitternut hickory. A dense shrub layer can exist. Characteristic shrubs include winterberry, spicebush, speckled alder, redosier dogwood, southern arrowwood, and poison sumac. Herbaceous layer includes skunk cabbage, sensitive fern, royal fern, marsh fern, green false hellebore, swamp saxifrage, purple avens, and swamp thistle. Tree blow downs can be common resulting in a more open canopy in places. The site is threatened by invasive exotic plants such as Japanese barberry and glossy alder-buckthorn.
Within red maple swamps, hydro-geologic setting is a primary determinant of water regimes, water chemistry, plant community structure and floristics, and groundwater recharge and discharge relationships (Golet et al 1992).
Successional communities include woodlands, shrublands, and grasslands. In these communities numerous shrubs can occur such as shrubby cinquefoil, long-beaked willow, pussy willow, meadow willow, silky willow, and dogwood. The herbaceous layer can be very diverse with forbs, sedges, and rushes including bog goldenrod, New England American aster, blue iris, marsh fern, spotted Joe-Pye weed, joint-leaved rush, inland sedge, porcupine sedge, dark green bulrush, and common fox sedge. Scattered red maples, eastern red cedars, and American larch can also occur.
Table 1. Dominant plant species
Tree |
(1) Fraxinus nigra |
---|---|
Shrub |
(1) Lindera benzoin |
Herbaceous |
(1) Ranunculus caricetorum |
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