Introduction

When Ponce de Leon first landed in Florida, overstory pines and a ground cover containing grasses, forbs, and shrubs were widespread over southeastern North America. The earliest descriptions were strikingly consistent. Journals of early explorers (e.g., Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and Hernando de Soto in the 1500s), travelers (e.g., John Latrobe, Mark Catesby, John Williams), and naturalists (e.g., John and William Bartram, Samuel Lockett, Andre Michaux, Thomas Nuttall in the 1700s and early 1800s) all depicted landscapes as open, with a low herbaceous ground cover and visibility for more than a kilometer through pines that most often did not form a complete overstory (Williams 1827, 1837; Small 1921a, b; Harper 1948; Tebo 1985; Frost 1993; Harcombe et al. 1993; Means 1996). More recent descriptions by field biologists reinforced the concept of open landscapes dominated by pines and herbaceous groundcover plants as the prominent upland landscape in the southeastern United States (e.g., Nash 1895; Schwarz 1907; Harper 1911, 1914, 1927, 1943; Harshberger 1914; Wells 1928; Wells and Shunk 1931). These descriptions still apply to the few old-growth stands present today (e.g., Platt, Evans and Rathbun 1988; Doren, Platt and Whiteaker 1993; Gilliam, Yurish and Goodwin 1993; Noel, Platt and Moser 1998).

These fragments of natural history all suggest that southeastern landscapes were predominately savannas.