The little caravan snaked through the dusty gravel roads of the Croatan National Forest, wheeling over when the lead pulled to a stop at the next spot on the tour.
At each stop, a handful of botanists, guides and a sizeable contingent of the North Carolina Native Plant Society climbed out and made their way to the edge of the savanna. After a little instruction about why a particular spot is the way it is, a nimble-footed jaunt into the wiregrass and its mates ensued.
Some stops were “wow” spots—rich in variety, odd variations and hue. Some stops were examples of improvements gone awry, like neat rows of weak loblollies where longleaf would have grown strong. Often, the first few steps were accompanied with a rattlesnake warning.
These are the fire-swept lands, burned by man not by lightening but to similar effect. Scattered about are the charred, bushy heads of the longleafs that didn’t grow high enough to survive the fire and the scorched trunks of those that did. Without the scrub and saplings the savanna blooms like nothing else.
The day of the caravan it was supposed to storm, but the rain held off and the cloudiness gave the wildflowers, pitcher plants, flytraps and sedges a richness you can’t see squinting in full sun; the cobalt blue of pine barren gentian, the ruby veins of the sarracenia. You wave the mosquitoes off in a world saturated with color.
This is the land of the longleaf pine, burnt in spring and now on fire with the blooms of autumn.
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