A production of: Nature Scene is made possible in part by grants from: helping sustain Nature Scene for the past four years.

Santee Cooper where protection and improvement of our environment are equal in importance to providing electric energy.

And by viewers like you members of the ETV endowment of South Carolina.

♪ easy music ♪ ♪ easy music ♪ Hello, and welcome to Nature Scene.

I'm Jim Welch with naturalist Rudy Mancke and today we'll be hiking through an Appalachian Cove Forest in the Blue Ridge Province of South Carolina.

It's early spring and the wild flowers should be beautiful today, Rudy.

And the Appalachian Mountains are so special and the forests here, Jim, are very, very diverse.

We're going to see how lots of wild flowers get an early start here before the trees get leaves on them and shade them out.

That's part of our story today.

And another kind of interesting part of the story is the connection between this part of the world and China and Japan.

Now, that may sound far-fetched but many of the tree species, especially here and some of the herbacious plants have relatives only in China and Japan and nowhere else in the world.

And what makes that connection?

Well, it seems so far apart that it wouldn't make sense But during Tertiary Times right as the dinosaurs were dying out continents were a little closer connected than they are today and a forest developed in North America and Europe and Asia that was basically the same kind of forest.

Genetic information was passing from one continent to another.

And since then those areas have shifted apart separating a little bit.

Ice has come from the north and wiped out most of that forest in what's now Europe.

But the Appalachian Mountains going from North to South and mountains in China and Japan going from north to south allowed these plants to move away from the ice and preserve the forests that would be all gone if it were not for these mountains.

Well, here's a wide abundance right here.

Great variety.

Lots of plants.

I think today will be the time to see some of these plants getting a start.

The one that's so common on this bank, unquestionably is one called Poor Robin's Plantain.

And it's in a group... Usually we call those the composites or the Aster family.

When you look at that, it looks like one flower.

But those little projections on the side instead of being individual petals are actually individual flowers.

They're called Ray flowers.

And then there's a whole cluster of tiny little flowers in the center usually referred to as disk flowers.

So, you know, a lot of flowers together would be a composite and that's what that's called.

That's the earliest... One of the earliest- flowering composites in this part of the world.

Rudy, here's a favorite of mine.

It's a green and gold.

And a good common name, right?

Makes good sense.

And again, you can see that's another composite, isn't it?

See, those aren't petals.

Those are actually Ray flowers there.

And then those flowers packed in the disk.

For butterflies, of course, other insects that's very attractive because you've got lots of flowers to visit instead of just one.

And again, that's typical of these moist, sloping hillsides in the spring.

Now, another one down here.

Look at the look at the trillium here.

Sweet Little Betsy is one of the common names for that.

But a trillium, and look at the flower on that very distinctly three parts to that flower.

Three petals there, colored three sepals there.

And then look at those mottled leaves around the base.

Sometime the petals are kind of that maroon color.

There's one over there, Jim, you can see that has yellow petals instead of that maroon.

Further up the bank on the hillside there's another yellow flower.

Yeah, look at the way it's dangling down there.

It's kind of an amazing shape to the flower.

Bellwort is one of the common names.

It's in the lily family.

And one of the strange things about it is notice the way the stem comes up there and actually looks like it's going through a leaf?

That's an amazing little way of having a leaf without really a stem on the leaf.

It's wrapping around the stem of the plant.

Perfoliate leaf so Uvularia Perfoliata is the species name.

Interesting plant typical of the spring.

In addition to all the activity here with the flowers over here, the trees are showing some blossoms.

Yeah, and there is a tree now that has flowers even before the leaves come out, usually.

Common name for that is Redbud although it's really more of a pink, isn't it than a... Than a red.

But very, very interesting tree.

Judas tree is another name that you hear that called every now and then.

Never gets tremendously large.

More of an understory plant.

But flowering this time of year.

And with the canopy gone it's easy to see this woodpecker up here.

Look at that, look at that!

Right on the hickory right in front of us.

And you can see those lines of holes drilled earlier by the woodpecker and now that Yellow- Bellied Sapsucker-- is the name for that one is coming and getting sap from those holes.

It's a male.

You can see it's got red on the top of the head and also red on the throat.

The female would have white on the throat.

Look at the way it uses its tail, too to kind of prop it up against the tree.

Now, these are older holes.

Yeah, yeah, they come back again.

The sap is oozing out.

They feed on the sap and also probably, you know, insects that are trapped in it.

But Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker is the common name.

Really, it makes pretty good sense.

It does have a yellowish belly and it does feed, as the name implies, on sap.

But this is probably home for that and it's got holes drilled in lots of trees and just comes and goes from tree to tree finding a free meal in the forest.

Let's just follow this trail a little further.

I'm sure there's lots more to see.

♪ relocating ♪ Rudy: these cove forests are very attractive to people because it's rich, you know, bottom-land soil streams running through them to form them.

There's another animal, though that does very well here and you see his work right here.

Beaver dam.

Beaver.

Yeah, it's a rodent?

Yeah, largest rodent in North America and extirpated from South Carolina in the late 1700s basically wiped out.

They've come back now and done very well.

Changing, rearranging the world to suit them.

Second only to man in the ability to do that.

Building those ponds mainly for protection.

And then, of course, they feed on bark and new shoots of trees.

And there's no question about it.

I mean, you can just look right in front of us here where the beavers had come out and gnawed it.

Hardwoods mainly, but also sometimes getting pines.

This, though, mainly is a hardwood forest that we're going to be looking at today.

And then, as we said, before the leaves come on there are all sorts of flowers that come in here and explode.

They'll be shaded out a little later on in the year.

Here's one that people actually used to believe if cattle walked by it, they got lice so the common name for that plant is Common Lousewort.

And that's what it's known by, lousewort?

Yeah, that's one of the names.

Wood Betony is another name for it.

Usually kind of yellowish flowers with a little bit of a beak on them.

Sometimes, though, they're almost a reddish or purplish color.

Then look at all the Pennywort down there.

Tiny little flowers.

See that coming out of the rich soil down there.

It's great in the spring to see dead leaves and the rest changed into life once again.

Pennywort.

That's typical of this kind of a forest.

There's some movement over here.

It's a salamander of some type.

Oh, my goodness, yeah.

It's moist enough now.

That's one of the red salamanders.

The variety that should be here is the black-chinned red salamander.

You see a reddish body with those black dots going almost down to the tip of the tail.

One of the salamanders.

Look at the smooth skin, kind of sticky.

You can see stuff, pieces of debris stuck to it.

Little eyes bugging out.

And very typical of a cove forest.

Right, and hiding, you see.

Once it gets a little too warm it'll slide on under those moist leaves.

no scales at all.

And one of the amphibians.

Again, typical of a situation like this.

Now, of course, trees die, pieces die and fall to the ground.

Nature continues to recycle things.

Look at the mushrooms down there-- all over the place.

Like a turkey-tail.

like a turkey-tail.

This one really is not the true turkey- tail mushroom.

This is generally called a false turkey-tail.

Those are the reproducing parts.

The body of that mushroom that's doing the breakdown of the wood is inside the wood itself.

But that's a pretty good name for it.

They're more delicate than the true turkey-tail.

Yeah, and a little more stiff.

Now, there's something else.

Look at the... Talk about delicate look at the delicate flowers here.

Obviously in the...

In the pea family.

One of the vetches.

You see that right on the side there?

With compound leaves.

Again, even the leaves are delicate.

But obviously in the pea family and if we had looked a little more closely at the redbud that's also in the same family so you could see the relationship by looking at the flowers.

And then one other thing that takes dead leaves, now and makes it alive again look at the snail.

The Forest Snail.

Yeah, the forest snail just oozing along, so to speak body basically almost all out of the shell now projections with the eye spots on it sticking up and then, of course, a couple other feelers down there below maybe tasting a little bit as it goes along.

Mesomphix Vulgatus-- "vulgar" meaning "common."

it's a very common forest snail and this is a perfect habitat for it.

Much more rain and moisture make this so diversified in terms of big trees as well as the small ones.

Yeah, and there's, there are quite a few that tower above the rest.

Really, the largest deciduous tree in North America is one called the Tulip Tree.

some people refer to it as Yellow Poplar.

There are some new leaves on one that's smaller, Jim.

Can you see those right there in front of us?

Buds opening up.

Sure.

And the leaf unfolding.

Ites have kind of a tulip shape on the leaf.

There's one species of Tulip Tree in North America right here.

And guess where the other species known is.

China.

in eastern china.

So there's one of those trees that makes the connection.

It's in the magnolia family and magnolias also live in North America and they're also found in China and Japan.

Also, you can see some nice flowers here of an understory tree that really brightens up this place in the spring Flowering Dogwood.

Very common, and again, doing best in wet situations like this moist, sloping hillsides.

Bracts, those white bracts really subtending a number of flowers-- underneath a cluster of flowers.

More color over here-- a small butterfly.

Look at that.

Right there on the leaves, yeah.

Pearl Crescent.

Yeah, not very large, as you can see but spreading his wings warming up in the sunlight a little bit.

Is that a spider that's coming in behind it?

See that?

Oh, yeah.

Looks like one of the wolf spiders just sneaking around to take a look at the thing.

A small spider.

So given a chance, would it make a meal?

It might make a meal out of that.

Hopefully the butterfly won't stay there too long.

Why don't we just walk on?

Maybe we can scare the butterfly away and see what's down the trail.

♪ relocating ♪ I mentioned the fact that this forest is in a way connected to China and Japan.

There's another thing about this forest that makes it very special, Jim.

It is ancient.

This place has been basically unchanged for millions of years and you can't say that about many places in the United States.

Protected because it's a Cove to a degree as well.

Yeah, and one of the plants and look around on every side that comes up and dominates here is Mayapple.

Little umbrellas all over the forest floor.

sometimes the umbrellas are single-stalked.

A few of them-- it's uncommon-- are... Have sort of a v-shaped stalk on it and those are the ones with... With flowers.

why don't we take a look at that flower?

I think I can show you one right here.

Let me put my hand under here and lift up this leaf.

The flower, you see, is kind of hiding underneath-- growing out of the fork there that goes to those two leaves.

White petals.

So how is it pollinated since it's so well hidden?

Well, it doesn't really have nectar to attract insects but there are a lot of Bumblebees right now looking for pollen to feed their young.

And you see all that yellow pollen there on the stamens?

And so this one really is probably pollinated by Bumblebees more than anything else.

And then you can also see that large ovary in the center, Jim that will develop eventually ib fruit which hangs down.

Almost looks like a lemon.

Thousands of plants, Mayapples on the floor but very few actually flower, Rudy.

Yeah, very few do.

And one other thing-- when you see a colony like this one thing that you always keep in mind and is that there may be an underground stem that's giving rise to lots of individual leaves.

And that's true here, this is really... A lot of these leaves probably belong to the same plant.

But very few of them flower.

Takes a lot of energy to flower.

Most of them are, again producing food for themselves and storing it in that underground stem.

Multiple flower arrangement over here.

Isn't that a nice one?

And from a distance I think if you look at it from a distance here it does look a little foamy and Foamflower is the most commonly used common name.

Abundant here in deciduous forests where you've got moisture and decaying leaves.

That's a plant, you know, very, very common here.

Another one, now, that's white-- one of the chickweeds.

Many of our chickweeds are not native but this giant chickweed or Star chickweed it's called, is native.

Really five petals on that that are deeply cut almost looking like ten.

But that's the largest of the chickweeds here.

Rudy, the lavender flower seems to be quite abundant here as well.

Yeah, and really a bright color compared to these whites that we've been looking at.

Wild Geranium is the common name for that one-- typical springtime flower.

Again, showing the diversity of plants in here.

Lot of other things that are white-- look down here below us, really fairly close to us.

Those white things are really not petals at all on that rue anemone, those are really sepals.

The first whorl in a single flower are called sepals and then the second one would be petals.

Usually the petals are showy but in this case, the sepals are the showy ones.

Rue Anemone, the common name.

And then, a relative over here usually called Wood Anemone.

Not so many petal-like sepals on it but those are sepals, too.

And again, doing well in situations like this.

All the nutrients going back into the soil from those fallen leaves, you see make this very, very rich.

Now, one other thing-- look on the... Look on the stump over there.

See the lizard?

Oh, yeah.

We saw the salamander back there.

Here's a lizard, one of the reptiles, now-- not an amphibian at all-- and you can see the scales.

Really that one's probably getting ready to shed its skin, it looks like.

So how does it differ from the salamander?

Well, the salamander had that sticky skin, you remember?

This skin is not sticky at all.

Salamander has no scales.

That old lizard has scales on the back and, again, is getting ready to shed the outer covering of those scales.

Green Anole or Chameleon is one of the names for that-- tropical species that doesn't get much further north than right here.

It's a beautiful day and a beautiful cove to walk through.

Great diversity, as we've said-- great variety here.

Look over by the water-- jack-in-the-pulpit.

That's one that I think of in the spring.

The modified leaf.

Really, flowers are modified leaves.

And if you don't believe that look at the Jack- in-the-Pulpit and I think it makes more sense.

Looks like the old pulpit with the preacher, Jack, see in the center there.

There are flowers on that little stalk in the center.

Usually, that has male flowers on one plant female flowers on another plant but sometimes both are on the same plant.

And a lot of beetles and other insects get in there to pollinate it.

That's not really attractive to many of the typical pollinators here.

And look right next to it.

Again, a plant that loves wet places, streams, in these coves and Yellowroot is the common name.

It does have flowers.

See how tiny they are, but those are flowers.

The root would be golden yellow if we were to pull it up.

We don't want to do that.

Again, we don't want to modify the world any more than we normally do just walking along the trail.

Lots to see here.

Oh, let's go.

Lots to see in the springtime.

♪ Rudy: whenever you wonder about how these coves got shaped of course it's the work of water, Jim-- streams like this carving away the rock and setting up a perfect situation for these little mountain coves to form... Little by little, but never ending.

Supplying the moisture that makes all the difference in the world.

And one of the plants that really comes into situations like this-- here's another china connection.

Witch Hazel is the common name for that one.

You've got the astringent from it.

Astringent comes from that plant.

One species in the United States the other species are found in China interesting connections.

Rocks, you see, are worn down.

Of course, ground up as they're worn down by water and see the mud and the gritty sand there from the rock that's been ground away Nature constantly rearranging the world.

And very pretty Rhododendron.

Yeah, when you think of a mountain cove and especially by a stream in a mountain cove you would expect Rhododendron.

That species is Rh ododendron Maximum.

It's the large- flowered one.

Hadn't flowered yet but you see last year's fruit on it.

Leaves are evergreen, stay on year round almost a leathery feel to them.

Laurel is smaller, similar but smaller.

Yeah, mountain laurel would look a lot like that but be much smaller and different type of fruit.

Let's just follow the stream on up.

♪ So pleasant to walk along a trail like this in the springtime with the sounds of the water behind us and all of this new growth.

Renewal in the spring is something very special.

Oh, the experience never grows old.

It never, never ends-- something new.

And you can stand in one place and just things pop out at you.

Here's more white right below us-- one of the violets that has lots of leaves on the stem.

And this is a connection to what is north of us; Canada Violet is the common name for that.

Beautiful petals on that plant.

One of those plants that is insect-pollinated.

Another trillium, a White Trillium.

Yeah, and this is an interesting one because the flower is held erect on a stalk so Trillium Erectum is the scientific name for that and Erect Trillium is one of those common names.

Wake-robin is another name.

Usually the petals are maroon but here they are white.

Looks a lot like another trillium called the large- flowered trillium but if you look down in the throat of this flower it's very dark right in the center.

It would be yellow in the large- flowered trillium.

So that's beautiful.

So much diversity.

Three petals, three sepals in place.

There's another one down low, too a relative of the Mayapple-- Blue Cohosh is the name for that.

Delicate little flowers and eventually the fruit will be bluish in color so the name does make sense.

Animal over here by the rock-- frog of some kind.

Oh, yeah, yeah, Green Frog although it's just got a little tiny bit of green on it.

Common name for that is the Green Frog.

And I can see well enough from here, Jim-- you see the way the eardrum's about the size of the eye?

So that let's us know that's a female.

The male would have a much larger eardrum than the size of the eye.

Fully grown?

Uh, yeah.

It looks like the abdomen's pretty full so I imagine there are eggs there and she'll be laying eggs fairly soon hidden away on that moist side of the trail.

So many trees.

Well, a lot of trees.

I guess the one that dominates-- and yet, not many of them are terribly large-- is the one with the compound leaves.

And what is that?

Palmately compound leaves on buckeye.

Probably the species here would be Yellow Buckeye.

And you can see the flowers on some-- sort of a yellowish color with a little bit of red.

Poisonous plant.

You know, the fruit, the seed, is poisonous but people keep it as a good-luck charm...

Supposed to bring you good luck.

Often in the mountains.

But a nice buckeye above us.

And then again, you look down low again.

Here's one of the hepaticas.

It's already flowered much earlier this year.

With a sharp, pointed lobe to that leaf so Acute-lobed Hepatica is the common name for that and you can see fruit on it right there in front of us.

Of course, one side... Over here we've got a little more sunlight-- little more patches of sunlight.

Look at that big mass of Dwarf Iris.

How beautiful.

Look at that, gorgeous!

And again,ke the Cultivated Iris but it's much smaller, iris-like leaves.

And then, really, three petals that are blue and three sepals that are bluish-purple.

Looks like they're all petals but really three petals and then three sepals.

Very beautiful.

Look, look next to it, look at the butterfly... Tiger swallowtail?

Yes, hard to see the swallowtails from here but you can see the striping on it that gives it the name Tiger Swallowtail.

Antennae out.

That'll probably live two weeks as an adult so it's got lots of flying to do visiting many of these flowers and getting nectar.

So much color when you look... Yeah, I see something else.

Look at...

It just landed over here.

Look at the dragonfly right on the short stem-- looks like a little red maple stem.

But the dragonfly is one of the darners called, um... Really, usually the Springtime Darner is one of the common names for it.

But hanging there with the abdomen dangling down-- that's typical.

Little bit of blue on the abdomen.

And look at the rock with moss on it.

Now, here's a rare one.

The fern right over there, long frond... See the way the frond leans down and then touches the moss again and it sprouts a new plant.

And it looks like it's walking over the plant.

Common name for that is Walking Fern and that's a rare one.

Rudy, often when a tree like that it could be a cocoon.

Is that a dry leaf or an animal?

No, you're right that's a cocoon, no question about it and one of the large Silkworm moths.

You can see, too, when the cocoon was formed that they actually used leaves around it to, in a sense, camouflage it.

And I don't see any opening on that so probably that animal is still inside.

Emerging fairly soon, Jim.

Makes it through the winter in a cocoon.

That's a pretty good idea that a lot of insects use and then come out usually in the spring.

I see one other violet.

The canada violets we've seen.

See the yellow one down there... Oh, what kind is that?

With the interesting- shaped leaf.

Halberd-Leafed Violet is the common name.

Yellow, and you can see those dark lines on that petal up front there-- it's almost like a landing strip for insects showing them, leading them in to the nectar reserves that are there.

Elongated leaf.

Yeah, yeah, very distinctive leaf on that one and the color gives it away.

Gee, I can hear and I can almost see the falls through the foliage.

We really have to get there.

Yeah, let's just walk on up the trail and see that next.

(water fall sounds) As we walk through this hardwood forest especially by the water we're walking beside some really tremendous trees-- good old hardwood forests... And rich soils and water allow trees to grow very large, Jim.

Actually in the spray zone of the beautiful waterfalls.

Yeah, this is a little bit of a different feeling because there is mist coming off of that waterfall almost, you know, year round especially as we get a little bit closer and that affects the varieties of plants that you see here as compared to what we saw earlier.

And of course, waterfalls like this are slowly but surely wearing away the mountains.

And these mountains are quite old.

They are ancient mountains these Appalachians.

And South Carolina has many, many pretty waterfalls but this one is something soothing and serene and peaceful even though it's tumbling water.

You can feel the cool breeze coming off, too.

There's also a temperature difference as well as the fact that it's wetter here.

We said these are ancient mountains and, of course the forest on the slopes here as we mentioned earlier, is an ancient forest.

And really, this is a botanist's paradise.

During ice age times these north- south-going mountains were a great haven for plants and, in a sense I guess it was a botanical ark for a long time.

And then, remember, again that connection even with the far east with that forest that... Really there are just two big pockets of it left in the world: one is in China, and the other one... Is right where we're standing.

A great place to visit for this Nature Scene.

Fantastic place.

Thanks for being with us and join us again on the next Na ture Scene.

♪ ♪ Nature Scene is made possible in part by grants from: helping sustain Nature Scene for the past four years.

Santee Cooper where protection and improvement of our environment are equal in importance to providing electric energy.

And by viewers like you members of the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.