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Spanish moss

The Carolinas - Part 1
"A Working Vacation"
July - 2009
Mark Burchick

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A Working Vacation
The Last Week of July
( part 1 of 5 )
 
Our family spent the week with appointments at colleges that Mark, our #3 son of four is interested in (telecommunications, film production and film editing).  We spent a day at University of North Carolina,
Wilmington, University of South Carolina, Columbia and University of North Carolina, Winston-Salem.
We have already been to Ball State and need to do a review of Virginia Commonwealth.
 
We drove 1500-miles and spent the difference of our time at Myrtle Beach, Georgetown and
Columbia/Camden, South Carolina at the beach and visiting my brother Jamie and his wife Anna. 
 
Traveling through the maritime strand, coastal plain and the fall-line sandhills we took opportunities to
botanize wetlands at Huntington Beach and Goodale State Park and Brookgreen Plantation, a historic
4,000-acre rice plantation, part of a former 45,000-acre low-country rice industry.
 
My photos, eight or nine each, in five e-mails are in chronological order of observation through the week.
 
Spanish moss Within several hundred yards of Atlantic dunes, live oak and Spanish moss become a
common forest type along the maritime strand of South Carolina.
nephila claviper The golden silk orbweaver Nephila claviper, common in live oak forests is so big and with
such strong webs, it has been known to take down towhees and other small birds in their
six-foot wide webs.
strophostyles umbellata Pink fuzzybean Strophostyles umbellata, a native legume of sandy soils.
hydrocotyle bonariensis Seaside pennywort Hydrocotyle bonariensis.
bacopa caroliniana
Carolina water-hyssop Bacopa caroliniana is an obligate margins of ponds plant.
water-hyssop I saw many areas of water-hyssop along the saturated shorelines of ponds.
scutellaria integrifolia Helmet skullcap Scutellaria integrifolia leaves behind a saucer-shaped crest (skullcap) that resembles the open seat of an old-time farm tractor, as seen in the background of this photo.
cyperus brevifolius One-headed flatsedge Cyperus brevifolius was a common sedge along pond edges
and stood out due to its white seed heads.
xyris fimbriata Giant yellow-eyed grass Xyris fimbriata is an obligate perennial that stands three-feet high,
well above most other marsh plants.  The flowers bloom on sunny days in mid morning and
then quickly fade.

 See Part II

Submitted by Mark Burchick



 


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