Brad: I'm pretty sure you all know to look at Caroline Dormon's stuff, she has fieldnotes in trhe archives that might be helpful, Couple of things we've made notes on hereabouts. The roses - especially the so-called
Cherokee roses, also Crape Myrle bushes (trees) along with cedar trees all these mark the yards of houses.
There is a vine the folks at Zwolle call an "Ice Vine" that grewat the ends of porches where the old timers came to washup and drink water - the "water shelf". I don't know what that is botanically. Yucca, not Bear Grass
but the tall kind grew near smoke houses, people skewed meat with the leaves, Sometimes the yucca was planted at or near gates,too. Folktale is that told certain outlaws friendly folksc welcomed them and would hide them! Not much logic in folk tales but there it is. In Texas the Chilipitines or Bull's Eye pepper along with nopal cactus grows near house places in alleys inplaces like Dallas or SanAntonio anyway we ought to watch for it
in the country,too. Sometimes in Oklahoma Indian houses had mint (Horse Mint) planted near them and also garlic which turns into a perennial. Good luck, this is a long neglected  issue. Google phytogeography and be surprised!  Come visit sometimes. Pete Gregory
________________________________________
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brad Laffitte [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2011 9:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Vegetation and Historic Sites

Thanks to everyone for the overwhelming response and discussion.

The whole purpose of posing this question to the group revolves around what seems to be a lack of literature on the subject.  We all seem to have experiences and knowledge with vegetation signatures and historic sites, but these connections seem to only be mentioned "in passing" in the literature for the southeastern U.S.

I work as an archaeologist at Fort Polk in west-central Louisiana.  We have noticed over the years that many historic sites (as indicated from historic aerials and other documentation) were missed during previous surveys.  I am currently writing an article discussing the reasons behind these sites being "overlooked", which will have a section specifically on vegetation that will largely be written by the installation botanist.  He is very knowledgable on the subject, but I'm trying to help him find any previous work done for the area or comparable resources.  We would like to, as was mentioned in one of the previous emails, develop a list of trees/shrubs/plants that almost certainly indicate a homestead (due to them having to be planted and/or not spreading heavily) as well as a list of those that are suspicious enough to justify surveyors briefly veering from their transects to further investigate.  This will help ensure that future surveyors
 can be briefed beforehand with respect to types of vegetation to "be on the lookout for".

Many thanks,
Brad Laffitte