The Nature Pages from OUTRIDER

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	The Natural Gardens of North Carolina by B. W. Wells University of North Carolina Press, 2002
	The "natural gardens" of North Carolina are plant communities -- native vegetation -- identified by pioneering ecologist B.W. Wells in 1932, when this path-breaking work was first published. Although much has changed in North Carolina, as elsewhere, this fluent and informed guide to the state's landscapes remains useful and definitive..
	From East to West, the chapters of this book define eleven ecosystems, beginning with the sand dunes, salt marshes, freshwater marshes, swap forest and aquatic environments and progressing to evergreen shrub bogs (pocosin), grass-sedge bogs (savanna), sandhills, old-field communities, upland forests, and finally the high mountain spruce-fir forest. The vegetation and habitat of each community is described and its wildflowers identified.		"To local folk in the sandhill country, it is a familiar observation to note how fire stimulates the production of the slender fruiting stalks of the wire-grass. Where a road has passively functioned as a fire guard, one may ride along for miles in the fall of the year and see the grass fruiting on one side and not on the other, in relation to the presence or absence of preceding fire." Wire-Grass Sandhills
	"Well shows us that the landscape is a mosaic of different natural communities, each with its own suite of plants and animals related in unique ways," writes Lawrence S. Earley in the introduction to this revised edition. "It was Wells who made the observation that in many places the state's vegetation just doesn't make sense; it's 'all mixed up,' primarily because of human alterations in the landscape."
Browse our selection of new, used and out of print  natural history.	Revisions to the original edition include new line drawings and color photos along with changes in spelling and nomenclature. Wells' plant identification key has been omitted from this edition, along with references to it throughout the text. Otherwise, the document stands pretty much as it was first printed in 1932.
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