Vegetation and soils

Characterization of bottomland hardwood vegetation in in N. aquatics, N. sylvatica var. bijlora, and 7: relatively undisturbed forests can provide critical informadistichum is greater that the proportion of basal area tion for developing effective wetland creation and restorain Q. laurifolia; or tion techniques and for assessing the impacts of management and development. Classification is a useful technique in characterizing vegetation because it summarizes complex data sets, assists in hypothesis generation about factors influencing community variation, and helps refine models of community structure. Hierarchical classification of communities is particularly useful for showing relationships among samples (Gauche 1982).