Information
compiled by Carol Ann McCormick, September 2006
The University of North Carolina Herbarium
has catalogued approximately 70 specimens that were collected
by Yolande McCurdy. Most were collected for here Masters Thesis
project, "An ecosytematic analysis of the vegetation of Hanging
Rock State Park, Danbury, North Carolina," which she completed
in 1975 under the direction of Dr. Al Radford. As databasing of
NCU's collection continues, no doubt additional specimens that
she deposited will be found and catalogued. She uses the name
"Yolande McCurdy" on the specimens deposited at NCU.
McCurdy earned a B. A. from Wilson College
(Chambersburg, PA) in 1972. She is now the Associate Curator of
the Herbarium of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee
(UOS).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
McCurdy, Yolande deB. (1975) An
Ecosystematic Analysis of the Vegetation of Hanging Rock State
Park, Danbury, North Carolina. Master of Arts Thesis in the Curriculum
in Ecology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC.
An anlysis of the vegetation of Hanging
Rock State park was undertaken to describe and classify the
plant communities present and explain their distribution in
terms of topographic and edaphic factors. Phytosociological
sampling methods were used to obtain species lists and environmental
measurements for 67 releves in the summers of 1973 and 1974.
These were tabulated with the aid of a computer, and seven community-types
were named and correlated primarily with moisture regime as
related to the topographic-edaphic complex-gradient. The community-types
and other species groups among the nearly 300 species found
in the park were arranged according to the Natural Areas Classification
System for the Piedmont of Eastern North America. The rough
topography of quartzite ridges and poorly-developed soils provide
a habitat for vegetation more closely related to that of the
mountians than of the piedmont.
