VERNAL POOLS

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VERNAL POOLS

• VEGETATION

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GENERAL INFORMATION

• Very different from forest plant communities
• Gap in canopy
• Skunk cabbage
• Rosy wash of buds on shrubs
• However, no group of plants to define vernal
  pools
• Use physical characteristics fauna

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TWO GROUPS

• TWO groups of vernal pools based on surrounding
  vegetation community
• Upland
• Found in upland landscape
• Separated from surrounding uplands by narrow band
  of wetland vegetation
• Wetland
• Vegetation does not necessarily differ from the
  rest of the wetland

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COMMON VEGETATION

• Ferns
• Mosses (Sphagnum)
• Liverworts

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VEGETATIVE CLASSES

• Mixed-Canopy
• Mixture of flood-tolerant plant species
• Leaves or needles woody debris
• Most small, natural vernal pools
• Red Maple Swamp
• Isolated depressions
• Flooded depressions
• Coniferous Swamp
• Dominated by evergreens
• Shrub Swamp
• dominated by shrubs
• Decodon
• Dominated by Loosestrife or water willow (Decodon
  verticillatus)
• Marsh
• Extensively vegetated w/non-woody plants