It seems to me that the general reputation of squirrels has declined within my own lifetime. I don’t recall hearing negative remarks about squirrels when I was growing up; indeed, most folks that I encountered back then seemed to hold them in rather high esteem. That’s no longer the case. It’s my guess that this turnabout took place because of the explosion in bird watching and feeding that has taken place in the last 30 or so years. Because squirrels are so adroit and persistent at raiding bird feeders, they are now quite often referred to as “tree rats.”

The gardening season is upon us. Many gardeners here in the Smokies region are familiar with mole bean plant, also known as castor bean. The first name is derived from the fact the plants are often placed strategically at the corners of garden plots to discourage mole infiltrations. The bean-like seeds are also harvested and pushed down into mole runs to even more effectively eliminate the critters. The beautifully mottled seeds (which look like plump ticks to me) are also used locally to make necklaces, bracelets, and other craft items.

Whenever I’m conducting a native plant identification workshop, I try to note several regional plants — one each in the fern, shrub, and tree categories that participants might utilize effectively in an ornamental setting. I usually recommend cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea). Among small trees, the sweet pepperbush (Clethra acuminata) is my favorite. In the ornamental shrub category, the highland doghobble (Leucothoe fontanesiana) is certainly attractive and manageable. It has evocative associations with regards to both its common and scientific names.

I’ve never been to Asia, but ever since I was a youngster I have, from time to time, fantasized about doing so. For years, I read every adventure-travel book I could find about the region. And I still love happening upon new books about plant exploration in remote China, Tibet, and adjacent regions.

I frequently hear from people who have spotted a mountain lion in Western North Carolina. Or at least they think that’s what they saw. I’d guess that about 95 percent of these sightings are of something else. But the other 5 percent seem to be pretty reliable.

A hunter was in the woods one day in winter when suddenly he saw a panther coming toward him and at once prepared to defend himself. The panther continued to approach, and the hunter was just about to shoot when the animal spoke.

Have you ever been walking one of the wind-swept, sun-bitten, high-elevation rock outcrops in the Smokies region when you suddenly encountered a grove of strange, almost stunted looking pines with outlandish cones? As described by Donald C. Peattie in A Natural History of Trees (1950), each such pine will bear “huge cones that encircle the limbs in dense clusters, each knob of the cone armed with a horrendous hooked prickle, as if to guard the harsh fruit.”

Several weeks ago I was perusing the used bookstores in Asheville, where there are, somewhat surprisingly, at least four excellent establishments in the immediate downtown area. I always check out the sections featuring Western North Carolina and southern Appalachian titles. Aside from natural history, those are the major areas in which I’ve collected since the 1960s. In the Captain’s Bookshelf, an immaculate establishment, I spotted a little soft cover volume by Merrill Gilfillan titled Burnt House to Paw Paw: Appalachian Notes (West Stockbridge MA: Hard Press, Inc., 1997).

Andre and Francois Michaux, and John Fraser, and soon to be followed by Thomas Nuttall, Asa Gray, and Moses Ashley Curtis, among others, John Lyon was among the intrepid plant collectors who first penetrated the mountains of Western North Carolina in the late 18th and early 20th centuries to catalogue the diverse and often unique flora that flourishes here. Of those mentioned in the preceding sentence, Lyons is perhaps the most neglected. An overview of his activities and of his death in Asheville (where his gravesite can still be located) is worthy of the attention of those interested in the region’s history in general and of its botanical aspects in particular.

The war in the Smokies proved to be an intensely personal conflict. A curious conjunction of terrain, history, politics and culture bred in the Smokies ... a tragic division of loyalties and a brutal partisan conflict between supporters of secession and adherents of the Union. This was a war where men rode to the house of a neighbor they had known for many years, called him to his door, and shot him dead; where other men left homes and wives and children and trekked north in cold and rain to serve the army and the cause of their choice; and where still others served in poorly supplied, poorly equipped, nearly forgotten units to protect border and home. This was also a war in which families wanted nothing to do with either side and did everything they could to avoid involvement.

— Noel C. Fisher