George Ellison
“Seeds of this common weed do indeed contain an hallucinogenic component, but, as is so often the case, the same chemical is also highly toxic, and the line between ‘a trip’ and ‘the final trip’ is a fine one which varies from one individual to another.”
— Jim Horton, The Summer Times (1979)
“How many thousand-thousand of untold white ash trees are the respected companions of our doorways, kindliest trees in the clearing beyond the cabin? No one can say. But this is a tree whose grave and lofty character makes it a lifelong friend.
Certain place names in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have become iconic: Gregory Bald, Thunderhead, Chimney Tops, Jump-off, Mt. Le Conte, Alum Cave, Charlies Bunion, High Rocks, Bryson Place, Cataloochee, Huggins Hell, and more.
Like poisonous serpents, some plants developed toxic properties in order to protect themselves against predators. Besides insects, the major plant predators are herbivores: bison, deer, rabbits, mice, caterpillars, aphids and any other critters — including humans — that devour plant matter above or below ground.
This past weekend marked the occasion of the 32nd annual Great Smokies Birding Expedition. Fred Alsop, the ornithologist at East Tennessee State University, Rick Pyeritz, the now-retired physician at UNCA, and I initiated the event in the fall of 1984. Since 1985, it has been held the first or second weekend in May.
Forty years ago this coming July 5, my wife, Elizabeth, and I and our three children moved into a small cove just west of Bryson City. The kids are grown up now and doing their own thing in Sylva, Asheville and Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“Marvel for a moment at the fern fiddlehead. It stands like a watch spring coiled and ready to unwind … What many do not realize, however, is that the fiddlehead has some unusual mathematical properties. It represents one of two kinds of spirals commonly found in nature, and this spiral results from a particular kind of growth.”
— Robin C. Moran, A Natural History of Ferns (2004)
The cove we live in has been alive with birds for several weeks now. As alive with birds as it’s ever been — and we’ve lived at the same place for 40 years.
In the early 1700s British astronomer and mathematician Edmund Hillary, of comet fame, called [the spiral formed by a fern’s fiddlehead] the proportional spiral because … [its] whorls are in continued proportion … The larger spirals are just expanded versions of the smaller spirals within [so that it is known as] the spira mirabilis or wonderful spiral.
Last summer while I was walking along the creek below our home, small splotches of red and white at the base of a large hemlock caught my attention. Upon inspection, these proved to be the flowers (white) and fruit (red) of the dainty partridge berry vine. Few other plants display this year’s flowers and last year’s berries at the same time.
Hog Holler, Hog Branch, Hog Camp Branch, Hog Cane Branch, Hog-eye Branch, Hogback Gap, Hogback Holler, Hogback Knob, Hogback Ridge, Hogback Township, Hogback Mountain, and Hogback Valley. In addition there are six sites in Western North Carolina named Hogback Mountain. Proof enough, if anyone required it, that hogs are an essential part of the mountain landscape.
There seems to be an upsurge of interest in ironwood in Western North Carolina of late. It’s curious how reader interest in certain subjects will pop up all at once, after being non-existent for years or forever. Some sort of synchronicity, I suppose.
The evergreen plants and birds that overwinter here in the Southern Appalachians have made fundamental “choices” in how their lives will be governed. Being aware of what those “choices” are provides a better understanding and appreciation of what they’re up to.
Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later. Our house has been invaded by a herd of pygmy rhinoceroses, which is the plural form (I just discovered) of rhinoceros.
“As for the Horseshoe Rock, it is one of those curving balds of solid rock. The depressions found on the rock are quite a curiosity, because of their great number, uniform size, and arrangement in long straight rows running parallel close together and at regular intervals; in fact, everything about them is so regular as to border on the supernatural …. One can visualize a herd of ponies coming up Horseshoe Rock from below by leaping past its more perpendicular part and then riding on in military formation abreast of one another to the top where they vanish in thin air.”
— T.W. Reynolds, High Lands (1964)
In 1900 about 35 percent of the deciduous forest in the Southern Appalachians was comprised of American chestnut (Castanea dentata).
One of my favorite times to observe ferns is in winter when they stand out in the brown leaf-litter. Of the 70 or so species that have been documented in the southern mountains, perhaps a fourth are evergreen. These would include walking fern, rockcap fern, resurrection fern, intermediate wood fern, several of the so-called “grape fern” species, and others.
Looking back I can remember that 1975
was a wildflower sort of year.
1980 was a tree sort of year.
1984 was a bird sort of year.
1989 was a mushroom sort of year.
1999 was a fern sort of year.
It’s Oct. 6 as I write this. The first frost hasn’t as yet arrived. But it won’t be long coming. Most gardening resources for Western North Carolina cite on or about Oct. 10 as the average date for a killing frost.
In the June 14, 2004, issue of The New Yorker magazine, there is an essay titled “Blocked! Why Do Writers Stop Writing?” (I can’t find the author’s name in the online edition). Therein one of the Romantic poets, Coleridge, is cited as a prime example of a writer who suffered from that peculiar malady known as “writer’s block”:
I don’t like to talk or write about writing — but when forced to do so by, say, an approaching deadline, I will. I am, in fact, doing so right now. But I’ll be concise: have a beginning, have an ending, and don’t worry about the middle.
“It’s football time in Tennessee!” is what John Ward, the long-time announcer for the University of Tennessee, used to declare when the opening kickoff of the season was airborne.
When it rains it pours. Within the past week or so, I received two emails about plant galls. That’s two more than I’ve received in the past 15 years of writing this column. Here goes.
When my son, now grown, was about 9 or 10, he queried me one summer day about the foamy bubbles in the tall grass of a meadow above the house.
Hog Holler, Hog Branch, Hog Camp Branch, Hog Cane Branch, Hog-eye Branch, Hogback Gap, Hogback Holler, Hogback Knob, Hogback Ridge, Hogback Township, and Hogback Valley in addition to six sites in Western North Carolina named Hogback Mountain. Proof enough, if anyone required it, that hogs have been an essential part of the mountain landscape.
It’s mid-June again … the time of the year when certain plants can be relied upon to do their thing in our yard and on the decks that enclose the house on three sides. Yuccas, oak-leaf hydrangeas, spiderworts, coral vines, various ornamental lilies and roses, and others are in full bloom. But none of these can hold a candle to the trumpet vine.
Certain questions inevitably pop up during plant identification outings. One has to do with whether or not eastern hemlock trees are poisonous.
A friend of mine who is a veteran backcountry explorer in the Smokies sent a recent email to me and others in which he noted that various lodges and hotels associated with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park “would make a good topic for a book … including such locations as the Wonderland in Elkmont, the original Cataloochee Ranch, the Swag, the ones at Tremont, below the Chimneys Picnic Area, and on the Tuckaseegee at Canebrake, as well as the one up on the Thomas Divide and the old Mountain View in Gatlinburg. I am sure there are many others but those are just the ones I can think of.”
For awhile everything was in control. But that didn’t last. It never does. Once again my books are in total disarray. I can spend hours looking for a book I should find in a few minutes. The only good thing about this situation is that it provides an opportunity to re-shelve my books. And it gives me an excuse to reread Larry McMurtry’s books about books.
“The cascading, four foot, doubly-compound leaves of devil’s walking stick, bunched near the end of long crooked thorny stems reaching as tall as 20 feet, give this plant a decidedly tropical look — it’s a plant that might fit in nicely on the set of Jurassic Park.
Unfortunately, more undeserved prejudice exists about bats than any other animal, except, of course, serpents.
In European lore, vampires (a word derived from the Serbian “wampir”) were bloodsucking ghosts, dead men’s souls that siphoned blood from sleeping victims.
Every regular reader of this column has an interest in this region’s history. But most of us are, more or less, armchair historians. We mostly read books or watch documentaries produced either on TV or as videos. We might, from time to time, visit a museum, historical site, or even walk a trail with historical associations. That’s about the extent of it. There are some, however, who want to push the envelope and actually experience, insofar as possible, the lifestyles and conditions faced by the early explorers and settlers.
Accounts of events always vary, especially when one is supposedly factual and one is admittedly fictional. Here's an instance.
The eastern hemlock has long been one of my favorite trees. Like many people reading this column, my wife, Elizabeth, and I have a number of very large specimens growing on our property, especially alongside a creek that traverses the cove we live in. And, of course, we’re very concerned about losing these wonderful trees to the hemlock woolly adelgid infestation that is currently ravaging the southern mountains. All of our hemlocks show signs of the infestation, and we will hate to lose them. This column, then, is sort of an ode to the hemlock.
When the Cherokees emerged as a distinctive culture more than a thousand years ago, they situated themselves so as to take advantage of the many resources available in the southern mountains and adjacent foothills. By locating major settlements in the Piedmont Province (the Lower Towns in South Carolina and Georgia), the Blue Ridge Province (the Middle Towns in northwest South Carolina, western North Carolina, and north Georgia), and the Valley and Ridge Province (the Overhill Towns in east Tennessee), they could purposefully exploit the varied commodities available in each of these regions.
Christmas greenery is a Southern Appalachian specialty. This region has been furnishing the eastern United States with quantities of various evergreen materials (trees, running ground cedar, mistletoe, galax, and so on) for well over a century. Of these, one of the most interesting is holly. In many ways, this plant’s dark green leaves and scarlet red berries signify Christmas almost as much as the Christmas tree itself.
When one thinks about navigation in regard to the rivers here in the Smokies region, its old-time ferries and modern-day canoes, kayaks, rafts, tubes, and motorboats come to mind. But there have been other sorts of navigation involving flatboats, keelboats, mule boats, whaling boats, and even steamboats. Some incredible stories have been recorded in this regard.
“Woven goods—baskets and mats—document what women did, when, and how. They illuminate the work of women who transformed the environments that produced materials for basketry. They point to women’s roles in ceremonial, subsistence, and exchange systems. As objects created and utilized by women, baskets and mats conserved and conveyed their concepts, ideas, experience, and expertise. They asserted women’s cultural identity and reflected their values.”
— Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry, by Sarah H. Hill (University of North Carolina Press, 1997)
I’m sure you’ve noticed it’s the little things that, in the long run, mean the most in life? That’s a time-worn cliché if there ever was one. But as of now, I prefer to believe that it’s true. And furthermore, I’m of the opinion that the little things are more important during the winter months. Here in the mountains, winter slows life down almost to a standstill, especially if you live in the country. In the country in winter, one tends to pay closer attention to the everyday world.
For 36 years, from the time he launched his career with the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1885 until his death in 1921, James Mooney devoted his life to detailing various aspects of the history, material culture, oral tradition, language, arts and religion of the Eastern Band of Cherokees, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, and other tribes, adding a new dimension to the writing of Indian history by combining various methods of research and utilizing sources from the Indians themselves.
Purple rhododendron is the most admired flowering plant in the Southern Appalachians. Ginseng is the most celebrated medicinal plant. And ramps are the most sought-after culinary plant — a fact that has led to its overharvesting in the wild.
As I write this on Tuesday morning there are five or so inches of snow covering the ground outside my window. The forecast on the Internet is for more snow. By Thursday there may be upwards of 10 inches.
My wife and I protect ourselves from the elements by having an artificial structure (our house) to live in. We can put on additional clothing. We keep the woodstove in the living area stoked up. Bedroom, bathroom, and office doors can be closed so as to maintain warmth in the living area. Soup is simmering in a crock pot. This is our version of hunkering down.
“A countryman’s tree is the Butternut, known to the farm boy but not his city cousin. One who takes thoughtful walks in the woods may come to know and admire it for the grand old early American it is.”
— Donald Culross Peattie, A Natural History of Trees (1949)
“Two or more Families join together in building a hot-house, about 30 feet Diameter, and 15 feet high, in form of a Cone, with Poles and thatched, without any air-hole, except a small door about 3 feet high and 18 Inches wide. In the Center of the hot-house they burn fire of well-seasoned dry-wood; round the inside are bedsteads sized to the studs, which support the middle of each post; these Houses they resort to with their children in the Winter Nights.”
— John DeBrahm, “Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America,” ed. Louis de Vorsey, Jr., (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1971)
Since 1976 we’ve resided in a cove about four miles west of Bryson City. Using various old deeds my wife, Elizabeth, and I have located tree slashes, stones, stakes, etc., which delineate the cove’s boundaries. We have found that old-time Appalachian surveys and deeds can be confusing and informational and amusing at the same time.
Now is the time to make resolutions, order seeds for the coming year’s garden and buy an almanac for 2015. Just doing those things will make you feel better.
My almanac of choice this year is titled “Harris’ Farmer’s Almanac for the use of farmers, planters, mechanics and all families for the year of our Lord 2015 being the first year after the bissextile, or leap year, and until the Fourth of July, the 237th year of American Independence containing the astronomical calculations for Northern, Southern and Middle States, weather forecasts, planting tables and a variety of matter useful and entertaining.”
The custom of decorating with mistletoe goes back to the ceremonials of the Druids. It is a reminder of the ancient custom of keeping green things indoors in winter as a refuge for the spirits of the wood exiled by the severities of cold. The European mistletoe was a different species than the one that occurs in our part of the world. But the early settlers soon located the American look-a-like and adopted it as one of their most important ceremonial evergreens.
One of my favorite times to observe ferns is in winter when they stand out in the brown leaf-litter. Of the 70 or so species that have been documented in the southern mountains, perhaps a fourth are evergreen. These would include walking fern, rockcap fern, resurrection fern, intermediate wood fern, several of the so-called “grape fern” species, and others.
During the breeding season a number of birds that belong to the flycatcher family appear in the southern mountains: eastern kingbirds and wood peewees, as well as great crested, olive-sided, least, arcadian, willow, and alder flycatchers. As their name implies, these birds hawk insects from perches and are great fun to watch. They will start arriving here in April from Central and South America.
Names of places throughout the Blue Ridge country pay tribute to the familiar wildlife of the region: Bear Wallow Stand Ridge, Beaverdam Creek, Buck Knob, Fox Gap, Wild Boar Creek, Coon Branch, Wildcat Cliffs, Possum Hollow, Polecat Ridge, Raven Rocks, Buzzard Roost, Eagle Heights, Rattlesnake Mountain, and so on.
