The Naturalist’s Notebook

As summer begins to fade, pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) begins to dominate open areas of the southern Appalachian landscape. The plant is a familiar feature in traditional mountain cookery, and widely used as a folk remedy. Paradoxically, folklore also identifies pokeweed as a lethal poison.

The tree triggered a health craze in Europe upon its discovery in North America, when it gained a reputation for curing everything from wounds to rheumatism. Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) became a major commodity for early America, and continues to have economic significance today.

When European settlers arrived in America, they found an abundant nut tree unknown in the Old World. Native Americans had a curious practice of pounding the nuts and tossing them into boiling water. The heat separated a cream-colored oily substance from the nuts, which was skimmed off and stored as a pasty material the Indians called “pawcohiccora” in the Algonquin tongue. Indians used pawcohiccora in ways similar to butter; i.e. as a spread and an ingredient in corn cakes and other dishes. English-speaking settlers soon shortened the Indian word to “hickory,” broadened its meaning to the name for the tree itself, and referred to the creamy nut extract as “hickory milk.” This oily substance became economically valuable in colonial trade; one quart of hickory milk, for example, could be exchanged for 19 pounds of pork.

As the sun weakens at the end of the growing season and flowering plants fade to brittle remnants, gardeners and wildflower lovers resign themselves to a few months estranged from nature’s brilliant colors. But one wildflower - the Jerusalem artichoke...

A major characteristic of southern Appalachian weather is the large amount of precipitation we receive. Certain locations record the second highest annual rainfall in North America (after the Pacific Northwest), and even fit the definition of a temperate rainforest.

Think of the most remote Appalachian wilderness you have ever visited and imagine that landscape if you time-traveled centuries into the past. Would it look much the same as it does today? Not likely, even though it may be “untouched.” The landscape would be filled with seemingly exotic species: towering chestnut trees, vast expanses of river cane, wolves, elk, panthers, and maybe even buffalo. The strangest sight, perhaps, would be that of a Carolina parakeet.

One day as 18th-century botanist William Bartram traveled on horseback through the southern mountains, he discovered he had entered a field so thick with strawberry plants that the crushed berries had dyed his horse’s legs deep red.

In a wooded area near my house stands a large, impressive American beech (Fagus grandifolia). Curious about its age, I measure the tree’s girth and consult a simple table developed to estimate the age of beech trees. This method is not entirely reliable, but useful nevertheless for determining a broad age range.

Mountain ash is found along the highest peaks, while holly is abundant farther downslope. Both trees, though, are generally absent in a belt between 3,000 to 4,000 feet in elevation. A familiar feature of the mountain South is the archipelago of Canadian “islands” along the spine of the Appalachian range. Peaks and ridges above 4,000-5,000 feet have climate and vegetation very similar to that of southern Canada and northern New England. American mountain ash (Sorbus americana) is a typical northern species also native to the highest reaches of Southern Appalachians. It shares a habitat with red spruce and Fraser fir. The plant is also known as the “rowan tree,” a name apparently borrowed from the European mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia), a species with similar characteristics. The Scandinavian word rowan means ‘red,’ referring to its bright berries. Roan Mountain, on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, supposedly received its name because of the numerous native rowan trees growing near its summit.

Range maps of firs and magnolias generally show the trees to be located hundreds of miles apart. The flowering magnolia is popularly associated with the balmy South; the fir- a conifer-with the frigid North. Yet, as is true of so many other plants, the unique geography of the Southern Appalachians has brought two species of these trees together: Abies fraseri (Fraser fir) and Magnolia fraseri (Fraser magnolia). The only place in the world where these particular species are found is in the southern mountains. Fraser fir and Fraser magnolia have a number of common characteristics. In addition to the name they share, both trees have a limited range in the southern Appalachians. As a result, the two species were discovered relatively late compared to other North American trees.

Spring plants get all the attention. Trillium, trout lily, mayapple, lady’s slipper, bloodroot, and other forest-floor plants are constantly photographed and praised for their beauty. Although these plants deserve the glory they receive, their counterparts in the meadow, maturing in late summer and fall, are often neglected. Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum), Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum), white snakeroot (Eupatorium rugosum), and other end-of-season flowers rarely grace magazine covers or draw the interest of many naturalists. Perhaps the time of year affects our attention span. The fresh and colorful spring plants set against the bare, brown forest floor demand more than a glance, and after several months of winter drabness we are eager to see green growth. In contrast, by late summer the wet southern Appalachian climate has produced, for several months, massive amounts of lush foliage.

The names “crayfish,” “crawfish,” and “crawdad” can be used interchangeably and refer to the same animal, although “crawdad” is perhaps more common in the Appalachians. The names evolved from a medieval origin in the French word ecrevisse, referring to its habit of hiding in crevices.

Sugar Mountain. Sugar Grove. Sugar Hollow. Sugar Knob. The word “sugar” appears on maps of almost every region within the southern mountains. A bit of our pioneer past is evoked every time these place-names are spoken, and the names themselves reveal the natural history of those particular locations. “Sugar” refers to the sweetener made from the sugar maple tree (Acer saccharum), an important forest food resource to the early settlers of the Appalachian frontier.

Traveling around the southern Appalachians, I occasionally glimpse a peculiar plant that does not seem to fit into any conventional category. It is tall enough to be a tree yet has no other “tree” characteristics. The plant’s grassy foliage is attached to rigid (though not woody) stems that resemble corn stalks. These individual stalks grow so close together in dense patches that no other vegetation can compete within the jungle-like colony.

A few years ago I invited a local beekeeper to place a hive on my farm. I naively assumed a honey bee colony would increase pollination and thus help maximize crop production. On a preliminary visit he stopped near a mist of insects hovering around a patch of blooming blackberry briars.

Stop at almost any east-facing overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway in northwestern North Carolina and you will see layers of mountains retreating into the distance. Most people assume that they are looking at the Blue Ridge Mountains. While spurs of the Blue Ridge range do taper to the east, the most prominent peaks and ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains end at the escarpment. So, what are those ridges that make Parkway views so spectacular?

In 1807 Thomas Jefferson planted a tulip poplar near the west entrance of his home. Over the course of two centuries, this tree and another nearby have grown to massive proportions, perfectly framing his impressive house.