Common (Translated Scientific) Name: Shumard Oak - Swamp Chestnut Oak - Water Oak / Southern Sugar Maple - Appalachian Basswood Swamp Forest

Colloquial Name: Southern Interior Oak Bottomland Forest

Hierarchy Level:  Association

Type Concept: This association covers bottomland forests of the southern Piedmont of Georgia and South Carolina, the Piedmont-Ridge and Valley transition region of Alabama, the adjacent Upper East Gulf Coastal Plain of Georgia, and the Southern Ridge and Valley of Georgia and Tennessee. Stands occur in broad flat floodplains of medium-sized rivers, or as smaller occurrences along creeks and their adjacent floodplains. The diverse canopy is primarily composed of bottomland terrace species, but may also contain some levee species which would normally sort out better along a hydrologic gradient in the larger floodplains of the Coastal Plain. The canopy of stands is typically dominated by Quercus shumardii and Quercus michauxii with Liquidambar styraciflua and Quercus nigra. This type is found either in the outer edges of the Piedmont, in the transition area to the Ridge and Valley, or just barely coastward of the Fall-line, so Quercus pagoda is either not present at all, or if present it is at very low frequency. Other canopy and/or subcanopy species may include Acer floridanum, Liriodendron tulipifera, Tilia americana var. heterophylla, Carya cordiformis (which may have high cover), Carya carolinae-septentrionalis, Juglans nigra, Quercus phellos, and Pinus taeda. Occasionally, Celtis laevigata, Platanus occidentalis or Betula nigra may be present at low values, but they are not characteristic and may signal the start of a different bottomland community type when noted in large quantities. The rare tree Quercus oglethorpensis may be present within its limited range in the driest versions of this community (e.g., in Elbert and Wilkes counties of Piedmont Georgia and Greenwood and McCormick counties of Piedmont South Carolina). Shrubs include Arundinaria gigantea (which may be dominant in some stands), Lindera benzoin, Ilex decidua, Callicarpa americana, and Corylus americana. Woody vines may be prominent in stands. The herb stratum is fairly diverse.

Diagnostic Characteristics: No Data Available

Rationale for Nominal Species or Physiognomic Features: No Data Available

Classification Comments: As defined, the primary range of this type is in the southern part of the slate belts (Subsection 231Aa), the nearby Piedmont-Ridge and Valley transition region (Subsections 231Ac, 231Db, 231Dd) and the immediately adjacent Coastal Plain (as at Fort Benning, Georgia/Alabama) where all the rivers flow southward from the Piedmont and do not provide vectors into the Piedmont for Coastal Plain species such as Quercus pagoda, which is largely absent from stands of this type. Its range could include portions of the middle Chattahoochee River, the Savannah River and their tributaries, and the upper Saluda River, as well as the upper portions of the Flint, the Yellow River, the Oconee and Little Oconee, the Ogeechee, and their tributaries. In Alabama, in the Piedmont-Ridge and Valley transition region, this would include the Coosa and Tallapoosa and their tributaries as well. The northern extent of this type extends to the Southern Ridge and Valley of Georgia and Tennessee. The name of this association may need revision; the distinctions (floristic and nomenclatural) between this type and other more common Piedmont bottomland associations need further investigation. A study in the lower Piedmont of Alabama by Golden (1979) does not recognize an equivalent to this type, as his study site did not contain enough unimpounded bottomland to have any samples related to it.

Similar NVC Types: No Data Available

note: No Data Available