Volume 91 Number 4 July 2016 Georgia Botanical Society Year of the Bog: Reed Branch Wet Meadow Preserve IN THIS By Hal Massie ISSUE: 2016 is the Society’s Year of the Bog and it started out with our Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage, where we visited many bogs in South Georgia. One of our most important bogs is at the other end of the state in a dramatic mountain setting less than 2 Book Review miles from the North Carolina border. - P4 The Reed Branch Wet Meadow Preserve is a Nature Conservancy preserve that Society News protects Georgia’s only known population of the green pitcher plant, Sarracenia - P5 oreophila. The bog is on the edge of Lake Chatuge, north of Hiawasee, with a clear Field Trip view of the tower on top of Brasstown Bald to the south. The Nature Conservancy Reports - P6 originally acquired a 10-acre tract from the Mull family in 1998, after the death of long- time owner and farmer Carl Mull. Two tracts were sold, including the Mull farmhouse, to Upcoming help defray the costs of the purchase, thus reducing the size of the preserve to 7 acres. Field Trips - The green pitcher plant was known from a few other sites in the area, but those P9 populations have all been extirpated. The construction of Lake Chatuge almost Workshops - certainly drowned some bogs with green pitcher plants. When The Nature Conservancy originally acquired the Mull property, only a few hundred plants were left. P11 Through careful management, including prescribed fire, outplanting, and efforts to improve the hydrology of the site, the population has climbed to over 1,400 plants. Green pitcher plant is listed, both by the state and the federal government, as an Endangered Species. The specific epithet ‘oreophila’ means ‘mountain lover,’ a name that seems so appropriate when standing in the meadow above the pitcher plants looking out over Lake Chatuge with a large piece of the Georgia Blue Ridge as a backdrop. While the green pitcher plant is the only endangered plant at the preserve, several other rare or unusual plants occur both alongside the pitcher plants and in the drier meadows in the northern portion of the preserve. These include prairie bluehearts, Buchnera americana; pink tickseed, Coreopsis rosea; mud-babies, Helanthium tenellum; bog-candles, Lysimachia terrestris; ragged fringed orchid, Platanthera lacera; and northern white beaksedge, Rhynchospora alba. Reed Branch Wet Meadow Preserve is not open to the public, but the Georgia Botanical Society obtains special permission to visit the site on occasion (including a field trip on Memorial Day of this year). The Nature Conservancy also leads tours of the property and holds occasional volunteer workdays. The next workday will be on July 16 – contact the Georgia Chapter of The Nature Conservancy if you are interested in helping to improve and protect this extraordinary piece of Georgia’s natural heritage. Photos for this article are on page 3 2 BotSoc News, July 2016 President’s Perspective On the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, we took a field trip to the Coweeta Hydrological Laboratory in Otto, N.C. All of us have driven past its sign on Hwy 441 and never knew that it’s open to the public. The trip leader, Don Hunter, was knowledgeable and enthusiastic. And he wants to lead more trips for us. We are delighted to have a new leader and a new location. Thank you BocSoc board member Debbie Cosgrove for coordinating this trip and making the connections for it to happen. Now I am coming to the end of my term as President. We have changed the bylaws so that the annual meeting may be held anytime in the third calendar quarter, and I have chosen July 30 for the meeting and election, so that the new vice president may begin working on the Pilgrimage as soon as possible. BotSoc News is published seven times a year (Jan, March, May, July, I am sad that my term is ending. It has been interesting to be president of this September, Nov and for the Spring 90-year old, well-respected organization. I am proud of some changes we have Wildflower Pilgrimage). made recently. These changes include implementing Paypal for membership, Submission deadline renewals and donations. Thank you to Merrill Morris and Rich Reaves for Is August 1 for the September accomplishing that. Thanks to Rich and Anita Reaves for supporting the idea to issue. separate pilgrimage registration from the Membership Chair’s duties. Thank you to Elizabeth King for doing a great job at handling the new registration process Subscriptions and Barrett King for supporting her in that task. Are included with membership. Website: Thank you to Heather Brasell for suggesting the Hugh and Carol Nourse www.gabotsoc.org pilgrimage scholarship program for students and for planning and implementing two great pilgrimages. Thank you to Hal Massie for suggesting Chattanooga, Editorial Office TN for our 2017 Pilgrimage - a great idea whose time has come. Ellen Honeycutt [email protected] Thank you to Susan Caster and Leslie Edwards for designing and implementing © 2016 Georgia Botanical Education Classes for beginners. These classes teach a small number of Society is a private nonprofit beginners a set of plants from one family. Thank you to all BOD members for organization under IRS 501 (c)3. voting to set up a “habitat conservation” category for donations, and thanks for Founded in 1926. approving the donation of $5,000 to protect Coastal Plains bogs. Personally, I want to thank several people who helped me discover and learn native plants: Gail Russell who told me about BotSoc at a 1992 Audubon meeting; Richard and Teresa Ware for fantastic classes on oaks, asters, hickories and winter tree identification; Scott Ranger who answered all my questions with enthusiasm; and David Emory, of whom I asked a simple question about mosses and he told me everything he knew. Too green to understand his reply, I realized that botany was a very complicated subject. Thanks to Tom Patrick whose deep love of plants has always impressed and inspired me; and Ed McDowell, to whom I could turn for help and know that he would get the job done well. I want to thank all BotSoccers with whom I have gone on field trips and pilgrimages, had Mexican dinners, learned Latin plant names, pulled privet, stopped invasive buttercups and learned to love our native plants. You are an intelligent and interesting group of people. Thank you all. Maureen Donohue BotSoc News, July 2016 3 Reed Branch Wet Meadow Preserve These photos accompany the Year of the Bog profile on page 1. Top left: Participants on a field trip to Reed Branch Wet Meadow in May of 2012 Top right: Green pitcher plants, Sarracenia oreophila Middle right: A large group of green pitcher plants, Sarracenia oreophila Middle left: Ragged fringed orchid, Platanthera lacera Lower left: Prairie bluehearts, Buchnera americana All photos by Hal Massie 4 BotSoc News, July 2016 Book Review A long-awaited new book authored by our own BotSoc members Linda Chafin and Hugh and Carol Nourse, the Field Guide to the Wildflowers of Georgia, is finally available! While this is the first field guide devoted to Georgia’s wildflowers, it draws on a wealth of quality data that has been available in a variety of other guides and manuals, making this a solid resource for enthusiasts in Georgia and surrounding states. A number of Georgia Botanical Society members helped with this publication – from donating photographs to proofing copy and more – and a paragraph in the acknowledgements section is dedicated to the Society and the inspiring work our members have been doing since 1926 in Georgia. This is a book that BotSoc members of all knowledge levels will find to be of great use for years to come (luckily the format is durable and sturdy enough for field use because that’s where a lot of BotSoccers will be using it). The book profiles 770 individual plants; an additional 530 plants are mentioned in a helpful feature called “Similar to.” Each plant profile contains a common name, the Latin name, plant family, and a color photograph. In addition, the following characteristics are provided: life cycle (annual, biennial, perennial), the natural communities in which it is found, descriptions of stems, leaves (both basal and stem leaves if necessary), flowers (clusters and heads if appropriate), flowering period, and range. Now you might think that such description categories are pretty standard, but these are no ordinary descriptions. Details are more than just length, color and shape. Words and phrases like “waxy,” “margins curled under,” and “without stalks” are descriptive but not intimidating. There is a glossary in the back should you come across any unfamiliar terms. The description section ends with a “similar to” statement that compares and/or contrasts the species with other plants in the same genus or an unrelated species which it resembles. This is a feature that you rarely see in field guides and is just as helpful when it mentions a plant as when it says “similar to no other wildflower in Georgia.” The book is organized into two main plant sections: dicots and monocots. Within those sections, plants are grouped by families (e.g., Asteraceae) and then alphabetically by genus and species. If you are not sure how to find the plant you’re trying to identify that way, a color-coded thumbnail section at the back allows you to peruse plants by flower color first. Series: A Wormsloe Foundation Nature Book Pick up a copy soon and take it for a test Paperback: 528 pages drive on your next BotSoc field trip! Publisher: University of Georgia Press (June 1, 2016) Language: English ISBN-10: 0820348686 ISBN-13: 978-0820348681 Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 8.9 inches BotSoc News, July 2016 5 Society News Georgia Botanical Society’s Annual Meeting Saturday, July 30th at 10:00 am Blackrock Mountain State Park, Marie Mellinger Building, Rabun County Linda Chafin will lead a walk on the Tennessee Rock Trail, which is 2.2 miles long, beginning at 10 am.