Vegetation analyses of the South Atlantic Coastal Plain Limestone Forest association1

Abstract The South Atlantic Coastal Plain Limestone Forest is a globally imperiled (G2) association in the upper Coastal Plain of central Georgia. This calcareous forest, comprising several diverse plant communities, is floristically unique among Coastal Plain forests but its composition and structure have not been subjected to detailed study. Formal vegetation sampling and multivariate community analyses were conducted for seven sites in Bleckley, Houston, and Twiggs counties. The data generally support the current NatureServe definition of the South Atlantic Coastal Plain Limestone Forest but suggest replacing Chasmanthium sessiliflorum with Carex superata as a better representative species for the herbaceous stratum. Cluster and canonical correspondence analyses revealed two floristically defined domains (Bottomland and Upland/Slope), delimited mainly by moisture content and degree of inclination. These domains were each further divided into two subdomains and a total of 12 floristic entities defined b...