Department of Conservation and Recreation

THE NATURAL COMMUNITIES OF VIRGINIA
CLASSIFICATION OF ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY GROUPS

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Second Approximation (Version 2.5)
Information current as of February, 2012

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Inland Salt Marshes

Inland salt marshes are extraordinarily rare communities known in Virginia only from a small mountain valley near Saltville, Smyth County. Similar but somewhat compositionally different communities are known from inland salt flats in New York and Michigan. The unique habitat at Saltville, consisting of seasonally flooded basin wetlands fed by saline springs, has been greatly reduced by industrial salt mining, hydrologic alterations, and grazing. However, small remnant marshes remain, supporting a very rare type of emergent vegetation composed largely of several remarkably disjunct halophytes. The salinity of water in these marshes varies over time from entirely fresh to polyhaline. Dominants are saltmarsh bulrush (Schoenoplectus robustus = Scirpus robustus), black-grass rush (Juncus gerardii var. gerardii) and formerly, on a few small exposed mud flats, small spikerush (Eleocharis parvula). Also present are hastate orach (Atriplex prostrata), jointed glasswort (Salicornia virginica), foxtail barley (Hordeum jubatum), broad-leaved cattail (Typha latifolia), common threesquare (Schoenoplectus pungens var. pungens), spotted jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), eastern rose-mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos ssp. moscheutos), and several non-native weeds. It appears likely that the community type represented at Saltville is endemic to this site, which is currently used as a park.

Reference: Ogle (1981).

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Click on the images below to open a larger image in a separate window.

	Inland salt marsh in a seasonally flooded basin fed by saline springs, in a valley of the Ridge and Valley region at Saltville, Smyth County. The dominant graminoid is black-grass rush (Juncus gerardii var. gerardii).Gary P. Fleming / © DCR Natural Heritage.
	Large, deeply flooded patch of inland salt marsh almost entirely dominated by saltmarsh bulrush (Schoenoplectus robustus), one of several disjunct halophytes occurring in the Saltville marsh complex. Gary P. Fleming / © DCR Natural Heritage.

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REPRESENTATIVE COMMUNITY TYPES:
The singular Virginia representative of this group has been well documented by field notes, quantitative plot data (map), and, a floristic study by Ogle (1981). The community type was named by inspection of data from two plot samples, which is probably acceptable in this case since none of its important and diagnostic species occur in other natural wetlands of the Central Appalachians. Click on any highlighted CEGL code below to view the global USNVC description provided by NatureServe Explorer.

• Juncus gerardii - Schoenoplectus robustus - Hibiscus moscheutos Herbaceous Vegetation
  Ridge and Valley Inland Salt Marsh
  USNVC: = CEGL006234
  Global/State Ranks: G1/S1
  
  

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