Woody Vegetation of the Crystal Mountains Region

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science Volume 40 Article 17 1986 Woody Vegetation of the Crystal Mountains Region Derwood Mayo Amity High School P. L. Raines Arkansas State University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas Part of the Forest Biology Commons, and the Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons Recommended Citation Mayo, Derwood and Raines, P. L. (1986) "Woody Vegetation of the Crystal Mountains Region," Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science: Vol. 40 , Article 17. Available at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas/vol40/iss1/17 This article is available for use under the Creative Commons license: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0). Users are able to read, download, copy, print, distribute, search, link to the full texts of these articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact , . Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 40 [1986], Art. 17 WOODY VEGETATION OF THE CRYSTAL MOUNTAINS REGION DERWOOD C. MAYO Amity High School Amity, AR 71921 P. L. RAINES Arkansas State University State University, AR 72467 ABSTRACT Arms-length rectangle transects and nested quadrats were used to sample overstory, understory and shrub layers on south-facing mountains, north-facing mountains and flat areas along Collier and Montgomery Creeks in Montgomery County, Arkansas. Data were collected and used to calculate importance values for trees and density values for shrubs. These data indicate that the shortleaf pine-oak forest type occurs on south- facing mountains while variants of white oak-black oak- northern red oak type occur on northfacing mountains and flat areas. Beech (Fagus grandifolia Var. caroliniana [Loud.] Fern and Rehd.) is common along Collier Creek and is completely absent from Montgomery Creek watershed. The presence of beech in the Collier watershed, may be due to reduced evaporation caused by less west to east surface air movement. INTRODUCTION Numerous studies have been made of special areas inArkansas such as Devil's Den State Park (Bullington, 1962), Crowley's Ridge (Clark, 977), Roth and Konecny prairies (Irving and Brenholts, 1977), Grassy ake (Huffman, 1974), Mississippi delta (Putnam and Bull,1932) and he Black swamp (Fogleman, 1981). Many environmental inventories and impact statements have provided important information on vegetaion inmany river watersheds but in most of these studies lists of species have been prepared without showing community associations. Literature reviews on the vegetation of Arkansas (Dale, 1963; Pell, 1980) list few reports of studies from the Ouachita Mountains Natural Division (Foti, 1974). Except for the study by Dale and Watts (1980) on the vegetation of Hot Springs National Park, information from this region of Arkansas is usually general and obtained from reconnaissance. A general description of Ouachita Mountain flora is given by Braun 1964). The Crystal Mountains area has outstanding natural beauty of vegetaion and terrain and has for many years provided the authors as well as many local residents withuntold hours of pleasure. Itis located at T3S, R24W and T3S, R25W in the Central Ouachita Mountains Subdivision of the Ouachita Mountains Natural Division (Foti, 1974). The ampling of plant communities was limited to Collier Creek and Mongomery Creek watersheds which are contiguous and separated by a ivide located between Bear mountain and High Peak mountains. This egion is greatly dissected by ravines between east-west mountains which ise 400 to 600 feet above creek channels. The purpose of this study was to determine forest cover types, obtain information on the distribution of woody species and to compare the vegetation of similar areas of the Collier and Montgomery Creek watersheds. types of sampling procedures, overstory and understory trees were named and measured (dbh) as they were encountered in sample plots. For purposes of this study, overstory formed the canopy; understory trees were distinctly shorter than canopy but more than fifteen feet in height and shrubs were considered as woody plants in the four to fifteen foot height range. Field data for overstory and understory trees were converted to relative frequency, relative density and relative basal area. The relative values were than summed for each species to produce an importance value (Curtis and Mclntosh, 1951). Data from three transects were compiled to form a composite picture of vegetation on south-facing and northfacing mountains in each watershed. Likewise, data from three sites were used to form a composite of vegetation on low flats and high flats in the two watersheds. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Arkansas lies entirely within the temperate deciduous forest biome (Oosting, 1956) and forest cover for the Ouachita Mountains Natural Division is generally designated as Shortleaf Pine Upland Hardwoods (Lang and Stevens, 1942; Braun, 1964) with combinations of various types of oaks and hickories mixed with pine as determined by moisture conditions (Moore, 1972; Pell, 1984). Dale and Watts (1980) identified four types of forest cover in the Hot Springs National Park. These were designated as Upland Hardwood, Pine-Oak Hickory, Oak Hickory-Pine and Mixed Forest and occurrence depended primarily on slope and exposure. Moore (1972) lists Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory and White Oak-Red Oak-Black Oak types as important or common forest cover types for the Ouachita Mountains. — South Facing Mountains METHODS Norman and Caddo Gap Quadrangles (7.5 minute topographic maps, U.S. Department of the Interior Geological Survey) were used to select ites for three south-facing and three north-facing transects in each of tie two watersheds (Collier Creek and Montgomery Creek). Each ransect consisted of a continuous sequence of2 x 25m arms-length recangles (Penfound and Rice, 1957) from the base of a mountain to the op. Nested quadrats (Oosting, 1956; Phillips, 1959) were used to samle flat areas along streams (10 x 10 m for overstory and understory nd 5 x 5 for shrubs) which were chosen by site inspection. During both Shortleaf Pine (Pinus echinata) is the most dominant species on southfacing mountains inboth Collier and Montgomery Creek Watersheds (Table 1). This is indicated by high importance values in both overstory and understory as well as significant presence in the shrub stratum. Northern red oak (Quercus rubra), white oak (Quercus alba), black oak (Quercus velutina) and post oak (Quercus Stella ta) are important secondary species. These data place the forest cover type on south-facing mountains ofboth watersheds as Type 76 (Shortleaf Pine-Oak) described by White (1980). However, D (...truncated)