Frank E. Egler

Indigene Versus Alien in the Development of Arid Hawaiian Vegetation

The conflicts of the old and the new, the conservative and the radical, the classicist and the romanticist, represent fundamental types of activity in the organic world. We find that their observation and study have been prominent for centuries. More recently, with the extensive introduction into new lands of human beings, of cultures and civilizations, of plants and animals, and of diseases and pests of man, long established equilibria have been disturbed and new ecosystems of very different nature are in process of formation. One unusually interesting aspect of this readjustment is that which is taking place today between the indigenous and the alien plants of tropical regions of both hemispheres. The authors purpose is to reveal the problem as one involving the ecology of individual species, and not involving an anthropocentric sentimentalism that breeds a spirit of defeat and that prevents experimentation and further observation. The island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, is the scene of one of these conflicts, where the plant life has been vastly altered since the impact of Europeans and their civilizations. More than two thousand cultivated and naturalized plants have been

BRUSH CONTROL IN SOUTHEASTERN NEW YORK: FIFTEEN YEARS OF STABLE TREE-LESS COMMUNITIES

The purpose of this paper is to report upon the vegetation of a tract of land 0.8 hectare (about 2 acres) in extent, involving a transect approximately 650 meters long (over 2000 feet) and over 12 meters wide (40 feet). It is part of a larger transect 64 kilometers (40 miles) long, in which brush control for fire-line purposes was effected by clearing and harrowing in 1934-1936. Although most of the line progressed to brush composed of tree species, the small part here described developed, coincidentally, to a complex of stable tree-less plant communities which has so far resisted reinvasion by unwanted woody plants. As a demonstration of relatively stable low plant covers that could be created today by selective application of herbicides, its description and interpretation is not only of academic interest, but of importance in the field of Plant Community Management where such covers are of practical value for many special purposes. This report is based in part on data from permanent plots, and in conjunction with other studies, is part of a long-term cooperative project between the Boy Scouts of America Greater New York Councils and the American Museum of Natural History. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the above mentioned organizations in establishing this project. They also acknowledge information obtained from Professor Ralph Unger (Head, Department of Forest Extension, State University of New York Forestry College, Syracuse) who directed the activities in 1934-1936, and from Mr. Kenneth Crandall, Property Superintendent, Ten Mile River Scout Camps, Narrowsburg, New York, resident on the area at that time. Mr. A. H. Whitney, Assistant Director, New York State Science Service, Albany, kindly supplied references and information on the geology of the region. The field data here published were obtained by the authors during the period August 30September 1, 1951. The transect described is part of the boundary fire line of the Ten Mile River Scout Camps, owned by the Greater New York Councils, Boy Scouts of America. This 12,000 acre tract is in southeastern Sullivan County, southeastern New York. The part here reported upon lies in southern Bethel Township, about 1 kilometer north and east of Crystal Lake. The geological substructure of this entire region is the Catskill formation of Upper Devonian age, comprising freshwater piedmont and delta deposits, mainly sandstones but also shales and conglomerates. Locally, the material is a grayish sandstone. These are overlain by highly variable glacial deposits, the weathering of which has given rise to the present soils. On the transect, two soils have been mapped by Secor et al. (1946): Lackawanna stony silt loam shallow phase and Norwich stony silt loam, both fourth-grade soils. The Lackawanna is that of welldrained uplands, from which bedrock outcrops on the summits, and which varies from being exceedingly stony and shallow on the steeper slopes to conditions on the lower slopes that approach the non-stony first-grade Lackawanna silt loam. The Norwich stony silt loam is that of the poorly drained flatlands near the small