species spotlight

Learn about Asteraceae, one of the largest families of flowering plants in the world! These blooms are wonderful signs that fall has begun, as you’ll see countless of these blooms across our region.

TLC Volunteer Steven Feuerstein highlights sourwoods – a tree native to southeastern North America. These unique and lovely trees can be easily identified by their bark, leaves, and curving trunk, which creates a lovely “dancing” visual in the forest understory.

By Laura Warman, Grants Manager Spooky season might be past us, and we’ve even had the first freeze of the year, but as the growing season winds down late summer and fall are great times to spot spiders and their webs. Spiders, overall, are a fascinating group of creatures that have been around for about […]

By Laura Warman, Grants Manager “Oh the cuckoo, she’s a pretty bird. She warbles as she flies.  She never says cuckoo, ‘till the fourth day of July”.  Cuckoos and their calls are the subject of a surprising number of songs, poems and stories, and they feature heavily in different mythologies (from ancient Greece to the […]

By Laura Warman, Grants Manager You might remember hearing about spotted lanternflies (SLF, Lycorma delicatula) in the news (or on this blog!) last year. These planthoppers feed on the sap of many species of plants and can have very negative effects both on crops and natural systems. Not only is their feeding detrimental to their […]

By Laura Warman, Grants Manager As we near summer and start spending more time out on the trails and in the garden, it’s a great time to be on the lookout for invasive species. As a quick reminder – native species can also be unruly, aggressive, and unpleasant for us but they evolved here and […]

By Hannah Royal, Stewardship Associate The Neuse River Waterdog is an endemic species of aquatic salamander only found in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico River basins of North Carolina. Also known as the Carolina Mudpuppy, it is one of three species of “mudpuppy” found in the state with the others found exclusively in the mountains and […]

Article by Madeline Joslin. Translation by Laura Warman. Según algunas fuentes, André Michaux introdujo los árboles que hoy conocemos como mimosas o árboles de la seda a los Estados Unidos en 1787. Michaux, un botánico francés, se dedicaba a enviar plantas a Francia desde Norteamérica, así como a importar especies de todo el mundo a […]

Some accounts say mimosa trees were introduced to the United States by French Botanist Andre Michaux in 1787. From his nursery in Charleston, South Carolina, Michaux shipped North American plants to France and imported species from around the world. Michaux brought mimosa seeds back to his nursery from Persia. However, the mimosa tree is native […]

You may recognize Japanese honeysuckle as the species you harvested as a child for its honey-like taste.