Site Studies at Panola: Melissa Caspary, a Ph.d student and Curator of rare plants at the State Botanical Garden(SBG) in Athens. Melissa is starting her Phd studies in April, taking the original vegetation survey work on the mountain pools done by Dr. Ragsdale in the 1960s and comparing his studies with what is there now.
She also will look at the impact of invasives on rare plant communities both on the mountain and in ecotones between outcrop and forest. We walked such an area briefly on Thursday. It was an area that has calcium indicator plants that Phil and I identified 3 years ago as an area that needed close scrutiny for rare plants but neither of us had the time to go looking. Anemone berlandieri was at the top of the list to look for and Melissa knew what it looked like. We think we found a small colony. Melissa took a rosette & emerging bloom stalk back to Athens and sent word it has been tentatively identified as this Anemone, common name tenpetal anemone or glade windflower. This area adjoins the Johnson property but Phil says we were on Panola land.
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