The Natural South: Introductions And Definitions

No major east-west mountain ranges prevent the full fury of an Arctic air mass from reaching its cold, harsh hand well into our continent.  Snow, ice, and cold conditions are thus probable during winter months well into the United States and possible into even low elevations in Mexico and Florida during periods of extreme cold.  The Gulf Stream and the Gulf of Mexico, however, are like thermal blankets which lie next to our shores and keep the southeastern portion of her warm and humid.  The result is that upon heading south from the Great Lakes or New England, a new world emerges where leaves remain on trees and shrubs, lush cathedrals of pines and oaks grow towering over carpets of grasses, forbs, palmettos, and even some rhododendrons and azaleas.  The northern traveler leaves behind any remnant of the harder north as spruce, fir, and some pines disappear into deciduous forests which again give way to pines once more and the first hints of a much warmer world in the fan-shaped leaves of the palm family.  New Englanders first saw sandy and rocky shores covered in dune grass and pines and had to face some intense winters.  The first Virginians glided up broad estuaries lined with the majestic flared columns known as Baldcypress (Taxodium Distichum) and Water Tupelo (Nyssa Aquatica) laden with branches covered in Spanish Moss (Tillandsia Usneoides).  Things were still, hot, rich, and seemingly able to stop time itself.

You see, the west boasts landscapes and vegetation which defy the imagination in sheer scale and determination.  Mexico holds us enthralled with snow-capped volcanoes towering over deserts and jungles.  The north has endless stretches of dark forests seated on a foundation of ancient rock and sand resting in turn among serene and powerful lakes.  In between we have the open horizons of the grasslands which seem to go on forever and direct the eye as much to the beauty of the infinite sky as they do to the small world of grasses and forbs covered in butterflies and roamed by majestic ungulates.  There too we have great forests of oaks, hickories, beeches, and maples, which either stretch between grand rivers or on the slopes of smaller mountains covered in rhododendron carpets.  All these places are exotic, grand, and savagely wild (or at least once were).  Yet in one corner nearly touching on all of these places lies a land of comparative tranquility and an altogether different pace, as if almost a country unto itself.  Here has been set aside a land where heat and humidity have produced a feeling best described as high early afternoon, with plants designed not for blowing in eternal winds, being chilled by the Arctic grip, or surviving drought.  The plants here instead simply exist as if to simply thrive. 

There are two such worlds here, however.  One we could call backcountry, and the other lowcountry.  The backcountry retains something of a frontier feel to it, where the features of the north have not yet fully given way to those of the subtropical lands introduced here.  The horizon is often backed by rises in elevation if not mountains.  The people here were once nation-builders and resistance fighters such as the Cherokee and the Shawnee.  The people then counted among them such persons as Daniel Boone, Davey Crockett, and those like them, men and women who needed room and cared more for solitude than agendas.  This is the land of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, James Taylor, and Bluegrass.  This is what some of her iconic backyard looks like:

From Congaree National Park, in the higher ground at the edge of the park.  I was going to put up a pure stand of Loblolly Pines, but there are a good mix of trees in the backcountry, so they had to be content with center stage instead.

The lowcountry still retains something of a gateway feeling in another direction, where the influence of the tropics starts to become more apparent.  The horizon is often backed by broad rivers and ocean. The people here were once also nation-builders but tended to be more on the side of diplomats when dealing with the newcomers, with the notable exception of the Seminoles.  They were the Creek, Chocktaw, Powhatans, and the aforementioned Seminoles.  The people who followed them were largely agrarian; some owned slaves, some just wanted a quiet existence lived on the production of the land, and they definitely cared about agendas and connections with the world beyond the seas. This is the land of Bobbie Gentry, Elvis Presley (to be fair Elvis transcends, but he was definitely a lowcountry boy), Mountain, and Delta Blues.  This is what some of her iconic backyard looks like:

From Congaree National Park again, but this time on the floodplain.  Congaree lies close to the place where the lands of the two Souths meet, or the "fall line" at the edge of the Piedmont.

Now, there are more divisions, of course.  There is a Deep South where palms and moss are a given, and there are the mountains, which don't really have the same feel as the rest of the South (nor did they wish to fight for the same side in the Civil War), and then there are sea islands, deltas, bayous, cove valleys, the Piedmont... a nice assortment of things that we can keep exploring in detail as the blog keeps on going.  In the meantime, for those who want to start to explore on their own, the backcountry can best be called something that starts in the Virginia Piedmont and wraps around the central Appalachians to the central Ohio River valley, wherein one first encounters on either side an increasing number of Southern Magnolias in cultivation.  The lowcountry extends at the edge of this down to the ocean and Gulf, to perhaps Southern Florida (which is its own animal) and well into Texas and across the bottom of the Ozarks, up back into the sloughs of Illinois and Indiana at their most southerly lands.  Here we can find baldcypress, the range of which best helps to define the area.