Pine barrens

Such pine forests often occur on dry, acidic, infertile soils, and also include grasses, forbs, and low shrubs.

The understory includes grasses, sedges, and forbs, many of them common in dry prairies, and rare plants such as the sand-plain gerardia (Agalinis acuta).

Plants of the heath family, such as blueberries and bearberry, and shrubs, such as prairie willow and hazel, are common.

[1] Suppression of wildfires has allowed larger climax forest vegetation to take over in most one-time barrens.

[citation needed] Barrens are dependent on fire to prevent invasion by less fire-tolerant species.