We conducted a review of the refereed and non-refereed literature associated with Ohio's forests, searching a variety of sources, including the Internet, on-line databases (e.g., AGRICOLA), and the OhioLINK library catalog using the following keywords: riparian forest, floodplain, bottomland, streams, rivers, streamside forest, streambank, and old-growth forest. We also reviewed more than 20 M.S. theses and Ph.D. dissertations from Ohio colleges and universities, as well as numerous Ohio Biological Survey and Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station (now the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center) forest inventory reports dating back as far as the early 1920s that pertain to the pre-European settlement vegetation of many of Ohio's counties.
Pre-European settlement vegetation descriptions at the state- and county-wide level were compiled to examine the usefulness of this information to develop lists of reference plant communities for riparian forests by ecoregion. We also examined more recent descriptive studies of existing old-growth forests and less disturbed areas across the state and summarized the available information on the major species comprising the overstory (stems > 10 cm diameter at breast height [dbh]; 1.4 m), understory (stems < 10 cm dbh but > 2.5 cm dbh), and the ground-flora (< 1 m tall) by ecoregion as defined by McNab and Avers (1994). We also examined these studies for any useful information that could help identify reference conditions for riparian forests.
It is important to note that a variety of terms that may relate to riparian forests were encountered in these different sources, such as floodplain forests, swamp forests, bottomland forests, and river or stream wetland forests. Consequently, for the purposes of our review, we consider riparian forests to include any forest located near any body of water, such as a lake, stream, or river. Where not defined in the paper, thesis, or report, we considered floodplain and bottomland forests to be associated with larger river systems that have extensive floodplains (e.g., Cuyahoga, Scioto, Little Miami Rivers), and river and stream wetland forests to be associated with smaller rivers and streams lacking extensive floodplain development.
Categorizing the swamp forests was more problematic; as a result we examined the local physiographic conditions using a variety of sources (e.g., local soil survey maps, topographic maps) to determine whether these forests were associated with a larger or smaller stream system. Finally, plant nomenclature follows Kartez (1994); see the Appendix for a list of Latin and common species names.