The spring seed bank in a red maple bottomland swamp along the Chadakoin River in western New York was examined. Soil samples were collected at 13 microtopographically defined microsites and placed in a greenhouse for a seed bank emergence study. Mean emergent seed density was 1,037/m² with a total of 2,179 seedlings emerging. A total of 81 species were identified, 18 of which were non-native. Seed bank composition was dominated by the forbs Boehmeria cylindrica, Lysimachia nummularia, and Scutellaria lateriflora. Of the seed bank species 23% were woody trees, shrubs and vines, 46% were perennial forbs, 16% were perennial graminoids, and 15% were annuals and biennials. Microsites varied in seed bank density with elevated moss, swale, mossy stump, mossy tree hummock and mossy root containing 58.3% of the emergent seedlings. Detrended Correspondence Analysis showed that berm and stump microsites differed in seed bank composition from the other microsites which were very similar to each other. The extant swamp vegetation, with 68 species in nineteen 100 m² plots had 39 species in common with the seed bank. Seeds of the dominant woody species (Acer ×freemanii, Fraxinus pennsylvanica and Ulmus americana) were present in the seed bank. The Sorenson-Dice index of similarity between the species composition of the standing vegetation and the soil seed bank based on presence/absence data was 0.347. This moderate level of similarity indicates that Bonita swamp is a mid-successional forested wetland.