By Mary Stauble
In 1995 the Catawba Wildflower Glen purchased a “ten-acre fragment so outstanding in the number of rare and different species of plant life that the two botanists, Dr. Jim Matthews and Dr. Larry Mellichamp, who had first inventoried it in the early 1990s, immediately pledged a thousand dollars toward its purchase,” according to the Catawba Lands Conservancy. Since then, Larry and Audrey Mellichamp have made another generous gift to the Catawba Lands Conservancy to help preserve the Wildflower Glen.
Later, when I asked Dr. Mellichamp, “Do we have a chance to protect these special places?”, he said we have to try harder. The Catawba Wildflower Glen now contains over 19 acres of purchased land and an additional 26.8 acres in a conservation easement to buffer the property. It was their first land acquisition and a priceless gift of an old-growth forest.
Today over 17,000 acres are conserved by the Catawba Land Conservancy. The Catawba Wildflower Glen is a jewel of biodiversity just below Mountain Island Lake and one of the most botanically diverse pieces of Mecklenburg County, just northwest of downtown Charlotte. Notable characteristics of a mature hardwood forest are the distinctive layers – canopy, subcanopy, shrub understory, and herbaceous groundcover. In early spring, the white flowers of native Bloodroot cover the hillsides. The list of native wildflowers goes on and on with Jack-in-the-pulpit, Catesby’s Trillium, Foamflower, and Windflower. The steep, moist, north-facing slopes along a small creek draining directly into the Catawba River host a rich diversity of herbaceous and woody plant species, including some more common to the mountains, like Mountain Laurel, Horsesugar, turtlehead and Common Silverbell. Due to the sensitive nature of the site, it is open only with permission.
Mary Stauble, Charlotte (NCNPS Southern Piedmont Chapter) is an environmental educator and consultant, and site steward for the Catawba Wildflower Glen.