• This community occurs in areas where canopy removal has created dry, open conditions and bare mineral soil, allowing for the establishment of Pinus virginiana.
  • These habitats include old fields, old pastures, clear cuts, and burned or eroded areas.
  • Associated woody and herbaceous species vary with geography but are typically ruderal or exotic species.
    • Shrub and herb layers are frequently very sparse.
    • Stands are short-lived, generally less than 75 years.
    
    
• This forest typically has a very dense canopy of Pinus virginiana and little understory vegetation.
  • The dense canopy may also include admixtures of other Pinus species (e.g., Pinus taeda, Pinus echinata) or other early successional deciduous trees (e.g., Acer rubrum, Liquidambar styraciflua, Liriodendron tulipifera).

• Virginia Pine Successional Forests have a dense canopy of Pinus virginiana but may have an admixture of other successional species (Acer rubrum, Liriodendron tulipifera, Pinus strobus) as well has deciduous species from the surrounding forest vegetation (Quercus alba, Quercus coccinea, Quercus velutina).
  
  
• The understory is typically open with little herb or shrub coverage, although Tsuga canadensis or Pinus strobus may be locally dominant in the shrub strata.
  
  
• The forest floor is covered with leaf litter and coarse woody debris.

• This successional community is possible in the Piedmont from Pennsylvania south to Alabama, and ranges west into the Appalachians, Ridge and Valley, the Cumberland Plateau, and in scattered locales of the Interior Low Plateau.

• This association was not sampled on the Mount Le Conte quadrangle or Cades Cove quadrangle.
  • However, it was observed at low elevations, in disturbed areas, around the Cades Cove Loop Road.

• Global Conservation Status Rank: GNA (ruderal) (Last reviewed: 06 13 2000).
  
  
• This forest represents early successional vegetation and is thus not of conservation concern.

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