bayhead

plural bayheads

1. biologyA swamp habitat dominated by bay laurels.

   A hammock or a "bayhead" (a cypress swamp) offers the next most favorable conditions, but a soil of nearly pure muck or vegetable detritus, of a fine floury texture, does not resist drouth as well as does the sandy flatwoods soil.

   1897, S. Powers, Strawberry Cuture

   Synonyms: baygall

2. The portion of a bay located farthest inland, farthest from the body of water the bay is confluent with.

   Two lowlands lie at the bayhead, one at either end and separated by a steep shore. Utasutsu Bay is separated from Naibo Bay by the volcanic cone on Poronetsu Peninsula. Depths are 60 feet within 1,500 yards of land, and there is a sandy beach at the bayhead.

   1943, United States. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Kurile Islands ..., page 60

   2 more examples

   The open-bay environment in Corpus Christi Bay is more saline than within Nueces Bay, indicating an open-bay environment located distal from the bayhead delta within Corpus Christi Bay and restricted or interdistributary bay located behind the main distributaries of the active bayhead delta in Nueces Bay.

   2008 January 1, John B. Anderson, Antonio B. Rodriguez, Response of Upper Gulf Coast Estuaries to Holocene Climate Change and Sea-level Rise, Geological Society of America, →ISBN, page 127

   A specific feature of the northern coast of Estonia is the largely intermittent nature of the local wave climate. As different from the classical examples of bay beaches, the bayhead beaches here are only partially sheltered from intense waves. Very high waves occasionally penetrate into such bays […]

   2011 April 15, Jan Harff, Svante Björck, Peer Hoth, The Baltic Sea Basin, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 262