Rome Sand Plains

Rome Sand Plains
IUCN category Ib (wilderness area)
Rome Sand Plains U.S. state of New York
Location	Oneida County, New York, USA
Nearest city	Rome, New York
Coordinates	43°14′06″N 75°34′12″W / 43.23500°N 75.57000°W / 43.23500; -75.57000Coordinates: 43°14′06″N 75°34′12″W / 43.23500°N 75.57000°W / 43.23500; -75.57000
Area	4,000 acres (16 km2)
Established	1980
Governing body	Rome Sand Plains Resource Management Team

Rome Sand Plains is a 15,000-acre (61 km²) pine barrens about five miles (8.0 km) west of the city center of Rome in Oneida County in central New York. It consists of a mosaic of sand dunes rising about 50 feet (15 m) above low peat bogs that lie between the dunes. The barrens are covered with mixed northern hardwood forests, meadows, and wetlands. About 4,000 acres (16 km²) are protected in conservation preserves. Pine barrens are typical of seacoasts; the Rome Sand Plains is one of only a handful of inland pine barrens remaining in the United States. A second inland pine barrens, the Albany Pine Bush, is also found in New York, located north and west of state's capital Albany.

E. W. Russell has described the Sand Plains as follows, "The landscape today forms a sharp contrast with the surrounding flat, fertile farmland, which is almost all cleared of trees and planted in crops. Uplands, including some dunes, support forest vegetation of American beech, white oak (Quercus alba), red and sugar maples, white and pitch pine (Pinus strobus and P. rigida), gray birch (Betula populifolia), hemlock, aspen (Populus spp.), American elm, and other northern hardwood species. Some uplands are also characterized as pitch pine heaths, dominated by pitch pines with an understory of blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) and other related (ericaceous) shrubs. Pitch pine is the characteristic tree of the wetlands, along with aspen, gray birch, and red maple, along with an ericaceous shrub layer."