week of 7/24/02
 
 
 

The essential books of Appalachian natural history
By George Ellison

Because of the newspaper columns I write and the workshops I conduct about the human and natural history of the southern mountains, I often receive requests for information regarding the region’s “essential books.” Any advice one gives along these lines is, of course, necessarily subjective; nevertheless, since I always enjoy looking at the bookshelves in someone else’s personal library or querying them about their “essential books,” I certainly don’t mind sharing some the titles on my bookshelves or my preferences.

Let’s start out this week with natural history. Next week we’ll take a look at printed materials related to the human life of the region, including the ancient and modern Cherokees.

The granddaddy of all the natural history books about the entire Appalachian mountain range is Maurice Brooks’ The Appalachians (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965). I never thought I’d see another book with the range and authority of Dr. Brooks’ book, and then along came Scott Weidensaul’s Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the Appalachians (Golden CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 1994). These two volumes comprise the backbone for natural history studies of the eastern mountains. They are required reading.

Everything begins and ends with geology. Mark W. Carter’s A Geologic Adventure Along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina (Raleigh: N.C. Geological Survey Section, Bulletin 98, 1999) and Harry Moore’s A Roadside Guide to the Geology of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Knoxville: UT Press, 1988) are two non-technical titles that not only tell you about the region’s geologic past but provide information on where to go to actually observe the effects and features.

A nice overview regarding general forest types and lore is Chris Bolgiano’s The Appalachian Forest (Mechanicsburg Pa: Stackpole Books, 1998). For the nitty-gritty story of plant and animal relationships go to Edward Kircher’ A Field Guide to Eastern Forests (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988). (Note that the first half of this book, a catalog of forest types, is as dry as sawdust; you have my permission to skip that part and advance to the second half, which is gangbusters.) For environmental issues start with Donald Edward Davis’ Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians (Athens: Univ. of Georgia, 2000).

There are numerous books about the various distinctive natural history areas within the Southern Appalachians. The best for our immediate area is Rose Houk’s A Natural History Guide: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993). Houck’s schematic approach is based on discussing the distinctive natural areas of the park (spruce-fir, grassy and heath balds, forest types, etc.) and her points apply generally to the entire Blue Ridge region.

For guides and commentary about the various natural areas you might want to check out, go to Lynda McDaniel’s The Highroad Guide to the North Carolina Mountains (Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1998). There are also guides for Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia in this series. The best is the one for Georgia, which considers many of the adjacent ranges in North Carolina.

The plant life of the region is its crowning glory; accordingly, most of my natural history workshops through the years have dealt with non-technical methods of plant identification. And most of these have been focused on wildflowers.

I always teach participants to use Lawrence Newcomb’s Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), which is based on determining the number or shape of the flower parts, leaf arrangement (alternate, opposite, etc.), and leaf type (smooth edged, lobed, divided, etc.). Learning to use Newcomb’s system will immediately double your wild-flowering capabilities if you are still using traditional picture book guides. I back up Newcomb’s with Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-Central North America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968) and Richard Smith’s Wildflowers of the Southern Mountains (Knoxville: UT Press, 1998). With those three titles in your arsenal, you can just about identify any wildflower you encounter, including those little doodads that never make it into the picture book halls-of-fame.

For trees, shrubs and vines I teach the use of Robert Swanson’s A Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of the Southern Appalachians (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), which — despite the title — also includes vines. For overall context of ranges and species, back up Swanson with Thomas S. Elias’ Field Guide to North American Trees (Danbury, Conn.: Grolier Book Clubs, 1980).

For ferns I have only recently discovered that the little non-technical handbook by Ann and Barbara Hallowell titled Fern Finder (Berkeley CA: Nature Study Guild, 1981) contains 98 percent of the species in our region and works like a charm. Since the illustrations in the Hallowell guide aren’t very detailed, back it up Lloyd Snyder’s Field Guide to the Ferns and Other Pteridophytes of Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986) which has excellent full-page line drawings.

For mushrooms I use Gary Lincoff’s The Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (NY: Knopf, 1981). I used to teach occasional mushroom workshops but have given it up because of the inherent dangers. Misidentifying a wildflower or a tree is no big deal, but when an overzealous participant ingests a misidentified mushroom it can be a really big deal.

I have no particular knowledge of titles related to the identification of grasses, mosses, liverworts, lichens or algae. My first line of defense in that regard is the little primer by Floyd Shuttlewort and Herbert Zim titled Non-Flowering Plants (New York, Golden Press, 1967).

In general, it’s my impression that the volumes published by the Great Smoky Mountains Natural History Association and the UNC Press provide the best non-technical coverage of mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and other non-avian animals. (These, along with many of the titles listed above and below, are always available at the visitor centers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.)

Identification of the birds of the Blue Ridge region is an interest area that’s been growing by leaps and bounds in the last decade or so. I’ll close out the first section of this “essential natural history books” survey with an overview of that field.

Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1980) remains the basic identification guide for beginning birders since it eliminates all of the species one wouldn’t encounter out West. Most fairly serious birders use the Field Guide to the Birds of North America (National Geographic, 1998), which does contains all of the birds of North America north of Mexico. The great advancement in bird identification guides in our present era is David Allen Sibley’s The Sibley Guide to Birds (Knopf, 2000), which depicts all of the species in their immature, normal adult, and variant adult forms. You could do worse than own all three of these titles. Buy a decent pair of binoculars and you’re in the birding business.

Marcus B. Simpson’s Birds of the Blue Ridge Mountains (UNC Press, 1992) is the standard guide for locating areas in which to find particular species. Simpson also provides a wealth of information about the region’s ornithological history.

George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C. 28713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com