"BROXTON, Ga. A rock outcropping in south Georgia's sandy, coastal plain...
the Broxton Rocks... Botanists have come from all over the United States to study the rocks' 530 plant species, some of them threatened or endangered... fractured sandstone rocks along a secluded four-mile stretch of Rocky Creek, a tributary of the Ocmulgee river about 170 miles southeast of Atlanta. ... The tourism office in nearby town of Douglas offers monthly tours to the rocks in March, April, May, September and October... The rocks are part of a 15,000-square-mile band of subsurface sandstone known as the Altamaha Grit. They were pushed up by shifts in the Earth's tectonic plates eons ago... the Nature Conservancy... purchase a core area in 1992... The Conservancy added another 756 acres in 2002, bringing its total to 1,528 acres. That land, plus another 2,271 acres owned by Coffee County and the Georgia Forestry Commission, make up the 3,799-acre Broxton Rocks Preserve... Noel Holcomb, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources... was surprised to find plants growing at the rocks that are common more than 250 miles away in mountainous northwestern Georgia, such as the green fly orchid [Epidendrum magnoliae Muhl.] ... Years of erosion have created cave-like recesses and widened fractures in the rock, providing an ideal, mostly hidden environment for plants such as the green fly orchid, a perennial herb that normally grows on trees. "There are gardens of orchids hanging from the sides of the fractures because it's moist and shady," said Fred Rich, a geologist at Georgia Southern University. "If you go up on top of the rocks, it's a xeric existence _ a virtual desert. It's the sharpest contrast in microhabitats that I've seen." " source : http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=74919 ********** regards, VB _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
