BULLETIN FLORIDA STATE MUSEUM


 Figure 1.-Thicket on a Consolidated Clay Settling Pond, the Swift site. Willows are
in the Foreground, light seed heads ofAndropogon are in the center, and dark wax myrtle
and Baccharis shrubs are scattered in the background.


the region. The single black cherry (Prunus serotina) found in A-3 is
considered to be an artifact, because this individual was located near a
spoil pile island, and it may have been rooted in that substrate rather
than in the clay itself.
 Combined as a class, the consolidated clay settling ponds showed
moderate abundance values for herbaceous and shrub vegetation, and
diversities were generally quite low (Figs. 3-5). Both abundance and
diversity values for trees were very low, except that the number of indi-
viduals was higher than in any other site category (Table 2).
 It appears that clay settling ponds tended to progress toward a mono-
type of wax myrtle, an unnatural successional pattern. However, effects
and interactions of the clay crust, the underlying colloidal clays, distance
from native seed sources, and the allelopathic effects of wax myrtle (Du-
nevitz and Ewel 1981) are not fully understood. Further research is nec-
essary on these factors, but it will require study of older and more iso-
lated settling areas.
 UNRECLAIMED PITS AND SPOIL PILES.-Beginning the successional
sequence of unreclaimed treatments, vigorous oldfield succession oc-
curred in the 0-5 year age class (Figs. 6-7). The three measures of her-


VOL. 30 NO. 3