Ph.D., University of North Carolina, 1961
M.A., University of North Carolina, 1959
B.A., Miami University (Ohio), 1957
Botanical studies in western New England were underway by the early nineteenth century, as evidenced by Edward Hitchcock's Catalogue of Plants Growing Without Cultivation in the Vicinity of Amherst College, the first complete plant list for the area, which was published in 1829 and revised three times in less than one hundred years. Despite the rapid growth in all realms of the plant sciences within the twentieth century, the work of early botanists is still useful to researchers in the area, and careful re-examinations of early publications, herbarium specimens, and archival collections yield much of interest in understanding current trends and processes.
Within the last two decades, students working in Plant Systematics (Taxonomy) and Plant Ecology at Smith College have been involved in a number of on-going studies of the flora and vegetation of the region, focusing their efforts in particular on the vascular plant species and plant communities of marshes, floodplains, and other wetland habitats.
One-long term analysis has examined vegeta-tional trends in three marshes situated in Connecticut River oxbows of different ages. Marshes of the two younger, regularly flooded oxbows shared numerous plant species with adjacent swamp forests and remained relatively unchanged throughout a ten-year interval while marshes situated on a higher river terrace that was rarely flooded shared few species with adjacent forests and showed sharp declines in diversity. This study is continuing at present in an attempt to learn more about the role of periodic flooding in maintaining wetland habitats.
A similar analysis is underway in a group of beaver meadows on the western margin of the Connecticut River watershed. Here comparisons of marsh and forest edge communities over a ten-year period are attempting to determine patterns of successional development in these recently established wetlands and to investigate the influence of beaver ponds and meadows on adjacent upland forests.
In addition to broad studies of the composition and structure of entire plant communities, other research projects at the college are examining the role of individual environmental factors, including acid rain and flooding, on individual plant species, the ecology of threatened or endangered plants, the effects of introduced exotic species, and the inter-relationships, including hybridization, of closely related species occurring within wetland habitats.
Burk, C. J. (1994). Evolution of a Flora: Early Connecticut Valley Botanists. Rhodora 96:75-96.
Boland, W. and C. J. Burk (1992). Some effects of acidic growing conditions on three emergent macrophytes: Zizania aquatica, Leersia oryzoides and Peltandra virginica. Environmental Pollution 76:211-217.
Sanders, L.L. and C. J. Burk (1992). A naturally occurring population of putative Arisaema triphylluym subsp. stewardsonii x A dracontium hybrids in Massachusetts. Rhodora 94:340-347.
Holland, M. M, and C. J. Burk (1990). The marsh vegetation of three Connecticut River oxbows: a ten-year comparison. Rhodora 92:166-204.