Botanical Site: Flatwoods at the Berry College Campus in the Oostanaula River Valley, Floyd County, Northwest Georgia, Southeastern
United States
Pycnanthemum incanum (L.) Michx., White Horse-mint, and Papilio glaucus Linnaeus, Eastern Tiger
Swallowtail, a Georgia State butterfly
at the Road of Remembrance, "Old Stretch Road" in the flatwoods of the Berry College Campus (August 16, 2009.)
Silphium terebinthinaceum Jacq., Prairie Rosinweed at the Berry College Campus (September 05, 2009)
I used to run in the nineties on the Old Stretch Road which is
also known as the Road of Remembrance. This 6.5 km long back road
passes through the flatwoods of the Berry College Campus. It runs from
the small parking lot next to the Victory Lake area on the Main Campus
to Frost Chapel on the Mountain Campus. (Map)
In the summer of 1994, I made a small
herbarium collection of those wildflowers, and in the spring of 1999,
I used photography and on-site wildflower identification to create the
web site. In 2000 and 2001, wildflowers were also observed on the
O'Bryan Gap Road, a portion that starts at the road's gate near
the Rollins Research Beef Center and ends at its intersection with
Central Grove Road.
A partial clear-cutting of the
woods was done in 1987 on some areas around the Road, and annual
prescribed burning were conducted by the Forestry Department of
Berry College. Those management efforts brought about the abundance of
roadside wildflowers on the Road of Remembrance, "Old Stretch Road" and to adjoining areas in the years that followed.
SOME WILDFLOWERS, SHRUBS, AND VINES RECORDED IN 2009
Martin L. Cipollini, Professor of Biology, Biology Department, Berry College:
“There is a five acre area that was cleared during a logging operation last year. We were permitted to convert that area to a permanent ( Pinus palustris P. Miller) longleaf pine seed orchard, and that area will be managed only by burning in the future (maybe once every five years). Because of the open spacing of the planted trees, this area will be ideal for lots of native grasses and wildflowers that like open conditions and that respond positively to burning. The only disturbances that might take place would not be until well into the future, when light machinery (pecan tree shakers) would need to be moved through the area to shake cones from the longleaf pines. But, no mowing, logging, or anything that disturbs the native soil. The area is to the east of Stretch Road and is about ˝ up to the mountain campus.” (August 28, 2009.) (Map)
LOCATION: Berry College and its two campuses are in the
Oostanaula River Valley at Mt. Berry, Floyd County, in Northwest
Georgia. On the Berry College Campus are the reminiscence of the
flatwoods in an area between the Oostanaula River and
Lavender Mountain, west of the GA Highway 27 North. These flatwoods
were described by Long (1921) and Jones (1940).
HISTORY: Berry Schools were established in 1909, and Berry Schools
owned all the land in the flatwoods from the 1930s forward. Over the years, Berry Schools turned the bought land in the flatwoods into pine woods.
From the late 1800s, two communities lived in that area, one in the
Central Grove establishment, west of the Old Summerville Road; the
other community was where the Berry College Mountain Campus is today.
In 1910, railroad trucks were laid from West Rome to Gore in Chattooga
County, which was a mining community. The tracks crossed Victory Lake
and ran northwest through the flatwoods until 1923 when they were
disassembled.
In the 1930s, the area surrounding
Victory Lake was landscaped by Robert Gridland, a landscape architect
from Philadelphia. Some asters were also planted. Ruth Clendenin,
a professor at the Berry School, and the members of the Mount Berry
Garden Club planted some native wildflowers in the picnic area around
Victory Lake in 1949.
In 1921 Berry Schools students built a road to connect the two campuses. They named it “The Road of Remembrance" and dedicated to the students who lost their lives in France in WWI. In 1923 the new, shorter road was built between Main and Mountain campus, and it has been
used since. Some trees, native shrubs, and Rosa laevigata Michx., Cherokee Rose, the floral emblem of the State of Georgia were planted along the Road of Remembrance in 1921.
Monument’s memorial plaque near the Victory Lake on Memorial Day, May 25, 2009
Rosa laevigata Michx., Cherokee Roses at
the Road of Remembrance (May 28,2009.)
GEOLOGY: According to Richards Associates (1972), the bedrock of
the Main campus, flatwoods and higher ground of the Berry College
Campus is Floyd shale with interchanged chart and limestone layers.
It is 320-360 million years old from the Mississippian epoch of
Paleozoic's time. The Lavender Mountain was formed during the Ordovician
and Silurian epochs of Paleozoic's time about 410-600 million years ago.
It is made from the Red Mountain form of shale and sandstone, and the
Maysville form of bedded limestone. Millions of years of erosion and
weathering scoped the present Lavender Mountain.
The soil profile of the Lavender Mountain's foothill, a cut along a roadbank of the O'Brian Gap Road, Berry College Campus, Mt. Berry, Georgia (March 12, 2007)
Victory Lake, a pond in the Flatwoods at the Berry College Campus, Mt. Berry, Northwest Georgia
(March 18, 2007)
LAKE and CREEKS:
Victory Lake was created from a swampy area in the 1940s and was named Victory after the victory in W.W.II.
In 1990 the opening of multiple sinkholes drained the lake. With the efforts of Berry College the area was saved and turned into a pond. The waters of two creeks combine to form Big Dry Creek, after coming from the Lavender Mountain watershed and more immediately from Swan Lake and the Old Mill on the Mountain Campus. The Big Dry Creek feeds the area around Victory pond and further carries the waters to the Oostanaula River. Another creek rises at Mt. Springs at the foothill of Lavender Mountain near O'Brian Gap Road. Further down, it crosses the road and, with its tributary, flows into Big Dry Creek. A creek that rises further north, also at the foothill of the Lavender Mountain and runs closely to Summerville Road, crosses CCC Road near the road's entrance from Hwy 27 N and then flows into the Big Dry Creek. That creek also has a tributary.
Average total annual precipitation for Floyd County Georgia is 139 cm (55 inches).
According to Automated Environmental Monitoring Network of University of Georgia in 2008 the annual total rainfall was 119.4 cm (47.02 inches), in 2006 the average was 106 cm (41.59 inches), and in 2005 it was 95 cm (37.59 inches).
Northwest Georgia and the State of Georgia ware in a drought in 2007, a driest year recorded with the average precipitation for Floyd County only reaching 81.8 cm (32.22 inches).
References:
1. Land Records. Map Room, Floyd County Superior Court, Rome, Georgia (March, 2001.)
2. Smith, James F. Cherokee Land Lottery. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1838.
3. Richards Associates. "Environmental Analysis of Berry College Lands." Arlington, Virginia, 1972.
4. Mc Dowell, Hazel. Mount Berry Garden Club: Sixty year history May 26, 1991.
5. Jones, Harold C. "Plant Ecology Of The Berry Schools Property, Floyd County, Georgia: 1940 " Diss. George Peabody College, Nashville, 1941.)
6. Automated Environmental Monitoring Network http://www.griffin.uga.edu/aemn/cgi-bin/AEMN.pl?site=GARO&report=rf;
The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Griffin Campus, University of Georgia
7. Images by Zvezdana Ukropina-Crawford
