Pocosin is a term for a type of
palustrinePalustrine comes from the Latin word palus or marsh. Wetlands within this category include inland marshes and swamps as well as bogs, fens, tundra and floodplains. Palustrine systems include any inland wetland which lacks flowing water, contains ocean derived salts in concentrations of less than...
wetlandA wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with moisture either permanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially or completely by shallow pools of water. Wetlands include swamps, marshes, and bogs, among others. The water found in wetlands can be saltwater, freshwater,...
with deep, acidic, sandy,
peatPeat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. Peat forms in wetlandbogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests...
soils.
GroundwaterGroundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of lithologic formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in...
saturates the soil except during brief seasonal dry spells and during prolonged
droughtA drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
s. Pocosin soils are nutrient deficient (
oligotrophAn oligotroph is an organism that can live in an environment that offers very low levels of nutrients. They may be contrasted with copiotrophs, which prefer nutritionally rich environments...
ic), especially in
phosphorusPhosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus is commonly found in inorganic phosphate rocks. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms - white phosphorus and red phosphorus...
.
Pocosins occur in the
Atlantic Coastal PlainThe Atlantic Coastal Plain is the flat stretch of land that borders the Atlantic Ocean . It is approximately long, stretching from New York, through the southeast United States and through Mexico, ending with the Yucatán Peninsula. The coastal plains have an average elevation of less than 200...
of
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, occupying poorly drained higher ground between
streamA stream is a flowing body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, kill, lick, rill, river syke, bayou, rivulet, or run...
s and
floodplain||-||-||-||-||-||-||-||}A floodplain, or flood plain, is flat or nearly flat land adjacent to a stream or river that experiences occasional or periodic flooding...
s.
SeepsA seep is a wet place where a liquid, usually groundwater, has oozed from the ground to the surface. Seeps are usually not flowing, with the liquid sourced only from underground. It is often used in environmental sciences to define an exfiltration zone where contaminated water, e.g., from waste...
cause the inundation. There are often perched water tables underlying pocosins.
ShrubA shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
vegetation is common.
Pocosin is a term for a type of
palustrinePalustrine comes from the Latin word palus or marsh. Wetlands within this category include inland marshes and swamps as well as bogs, fens, tundra and floodplains. Palustrine systems include any inland wetland which lacks flowing water, contains ocean derived salts in concentrations of less than...
wetlandA wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with moisture either permanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially or completely by shallow pools of water. Wetlands include swamps, marshes, and bogs, among others. The water found in wetlands can be saltwater, freshwater,...
with deep, acidic, sandy,
peatPeat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. Peat forms in wetlandbogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests...
soils.
GroundwaterGroundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of lithologic formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in...
saturates the soil except during brief seasonal dry spells and during prolonged
droughtA drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
s. Pocosin soils are nutrient deficient (
oligotrophAn oligotroph is an organism that can live in an environment that offers very low levels of nutrients. They may be contrasted with copiotrophs, which prefer nutritionally rich environments...
ic), especially in
phosphorusPhosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus is commonly found in inorganic phosphate rocks. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms - white phosphorus and red phosphorus...
.
Pocosins occur in the
Atlantic Coastal PlainThe Atlantic Coastal Plain is the flat stretch of land that borders the Atlantic Ocean . It is approximately long, stretching from New York, through the southeast United States and through Mexico, ending with the Yucatán Peninsula. The coastal plains have an average elevation of less than 200...
of
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, occupying poorly drained higher ground between
streamA stream is a flowing body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, kill, lick, rill, river syke, bayou, rivulet, or run...
s and
floodplain||-||-||-||-||-||-||-||}A floodplain, or flood plain, is flat or nearly flat land adjacent to a stream or river that experiences occasional or periodic flooding...
s.
SeepsA seep is a wet place where a liquid, usually groundwater, has oozed from the ground to the surface. Seeps are usually not flowing, with the liquid sourced only from underground. It is often used in environmental sciences to define an exfiltration zone where contaminated water, e.g., from waste...
cause the inundation. There are often perched water tables underlying pocosins.
ShrubA shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
vegetation is common. Pocosins are sometimes called
shrub bogs.
Pond PineThe Pond Pine is a tree found along the Atlantic coastal plain of the eastern United States, from southern New Jersey south to Florida and west to southern Alabama. This pine often has a crooked growth pattern and an irregular top and attains the height of 15-20 m, occasionally up to 30 m.The...
s dominate pocosin forests, but
Loblolly PineLoblolly Pine is one of several pines native to the American South, being particularly dominant in the eastern half of North Carolina...
and
Longleaf PineThe Longleaf Pine is a pine native to the southeast United States, found along the coastal plain from eastern Texas to southeast Virginia extending into northern and central Florida....
are also associated with pocosins.
A distinction is sometimes made between
short pocosins, which have shorter trees, deeper peat, and less soil nurtients, and
tall pocosins, which have taller trees, shallow peat, and more soil nutrient. Where soil saturation is less frequent and peat depths shallower, pocosins transition into pine
flatwoodsFlatwoods, Pineywoods, Longleaf Pine-Wiregrass Ecosystem refers to an ecological community in the Southeastern coastal plain of North America...
. A loose definition of "pocosin" can include all shrub and forest
bogA bog or mire is a wetland type that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—usually mosses, but also lichens in Arctic climates....
s, as well as stands of
Atlantic White CypressChamaecyparis thyoides , is a species of Chamaecyparis, native to the Atlantic coast of North America from Maine south to Georgia, with a disjunct population on the Mexican Gulf coast from Florida to Mississippi...
and Loblolly Pine on the Atlantic Coastal Plain. A stricter definition restricts pocosins to shruby "short pocosins" and Pond Pine-forested "tall pocosins".
Pocosin
ecosystemAn ecosystem is a system of interdependent organisms which share the same habitat, in an area functioning together with all of the physical factors of the environment. Ecosystems can be permanent or temporary. Ecosystems usually form a number of food webs...
s are fire-adapted (
pyrophyticPyrophytes are plants which have adapted to tolerate fire. "Pyrophyte" comes from the ancient Greek "pyros" and "phytos" .Fire acts favorably for some species. When the fire is short, it destroys the more sensitive plants or worst protected....
). Pond Pines exhibit
serotinySerotiny is an ecological adaptation exhibited by some seed plants, in which seed release occurs in response to an environmental trigger, rather than spontaneously at seed maturation. The most common and best studied trigger is fire, and the term serotiny is often used to refer to this specific case...
, such that wildfire can create a pond pine seedbed in the soil. Wildfires in pocosins tend to be intense, sometimes burning deep into the peat, resulting in small lakes and ponds.
Wildfires occurring about once a decade tend to cause pond pine trees to dominate over other trees, and cane (
ArundinariaArundinaria, commonly known as the canes, is the sole temperate genus of bamboo native to the New World . The genus is endemic to the eastern United States from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Ohio and Texas. Within this region they are found from the Coastal Plain to medium elevations in...
) rather than shrubs to dominate the
understoryUnderstory is the term for the area of a forest which grows at the lowest height level below the forest canopy. Plants in the understory consist of a mixture of seedlings and saplings of canopy trees together with understory shrubs and herbs...
. More frequent fires result in a pyrophytic shrub understory. Annual fires prevent shrub growth and thin the Pond Pine forest cover, creating a flooded
savannaA savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close...
with grass, sedge, and herb groundcover.
The word
pocosin is thought to come from an
Eastern Algonquian languageThe Eastern Algonquian languages constitute a subgroup of the larger Algonquian family, itself a member of the Algic family. Prior to European contact, Eastern Algonquian consisted of some seventeen or more languages occupying contiguous territory on the Atlantic coast of North America and adjacent...
word.