  {uncaptioned} If you wish to see a Hypericum splendens, you will look for it on the steep slopes of Stone Mountain. This little hardwood shrub, about three feet tall with bright yellow blossoms, is found nowhere else on earth—not even on the similar, but lesser, granite outcrops of the area, in DeKalb and Rockdale Counties. The Hypericums grow thickest in tiny crevices about halfway up the mountain and most are on the southwest side. None are found at the top nor the bottom. The saucy little golden blossoms with many stamens are about an inch across, and they appear in terminal clusters at the end of branches. Just a few open at a time, so blooming is continuous through most of June and July. The hardy little plant seems immune to drought and even indifferent to weather. Rain or shine, hot or cold, has no effect on its growth or blossoms. But each plant has a life expectancy of only about three years, after which it dies down completely, to be replaced by descendants coming up from seed. The great whale-shaped mountain of granite, far from being the bare rock that it appears, is literally covered with plant life. Thirty specimens of plants are listed as rare, and many more are so uncommon or so regional as to be total strangers to nearly all visitors. Botanists from Emory and Georgia State Universities in nearby Atlanta, and the University of Georgia in Athens, have regarded Stone Mountain as their special laboratory since the schools were founded. In 1961 a full-time horticulturist was employed to live on the mountain. Harold Cox, from Stratford, England, studied at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. His assistant, Gerhard Oortman, grew up working in the magnificent gardens of Eastern Holland. They have become intimately acquainted with practically every weed, twig, bush and tree on Stone Mountain. They have ascertained that the Hypericum is the only shrub that grows nowhere else. Hoping to have specimens where visitors could recognize them, without running the risk of having souvenir hunters exterminate the genus, Cox and Oortman rooted some cuttings in the greenhouse and set them out in a garden plot across from the carving—and saw them promptly wither and die. However, some seed planted in the same ground have sprouted and seem to be thriving. Stone Mountain’s botanical treasures are governed partly by the seasons and partly by the amount of soil available. The most spectacular of the unusual plants is the Viguiera porteri. It is so rare that it had no common name until the Stone Mountain natives titled it Confederate Daisy. It has relatives in Mexico, but the American branch is confined entirely to Stone Mountain and other granite outcrops of Georgia’s Piedmont Plateau. The Confederate Daisy grows in swales or crevices where sand or soil has collected to a depth of three or four inches to a foot. The plants would be regarded as skimpy little weeds throughout spring and summer. A dry summer stunts the year’s crop. But when frequent showers dampen the mountain’s surface, the scrawny plants put on a big spurt of growth in August. About the middle of September they burst into great beds of blooms, making the nearly bare rock look like a golden meadow. The profusion of color lasts until mid October. In early spring the Diamorpha cymosa spread like a bright red carpet where soil is half to an inch deep. The color is in the plants, two or three inches tall, and in the succulent round leaves. Tiny white blossoms detract, rather than add, to the color. The Amphianthus pusillus has no common name. It is a member of the snapdragon family, but is so small that it is rarely noticed except by naturalists who are looking for it. However, it leads a remarkable existence. The Amphianthus lives in the rain pits on top of the mountain, small sunken areas where water collects after each shower. When the pit dries up, the only sign of the plant is a little cyst under the sand and gravel at the bottom. Immediately after a rain the cyst sends up a little rosette of reed-like leaves that stay submerged. From their midst a thread-like stem arises and sprouts two leaves half an inch across, that float on the surface. A tiny bud appears between the two leaves, and opens into a white flower no more than one-sixteenth of an inch across. When the pool dries up, the plant disappears, quickly turning to dust, except for the cyst, which waits patiently for the next rain to bring it back to life. The Amphianthus is not exclusive with Stone Mountain. It has been seen on Mount Rollaway in Rockdale County, but it is missing from some of the other granite outcrops. Cox called it a monotypic genus, which means it is represented by the one genus. Sharing the larger rain pits are fairy shrimp, whose lives are frequently interrupted. These minute crustaceans, hardly more than an eighth of an inch long, look considerably like ocean-going shrimp when viewed through a magnifying glass, and they even swim backward. They disappear when the pits dry up, and come back soon after the next rain. It is presumed that all mature specimens die in the drought, leaving eggs which hatch when the water returns. The dark gray color of Stone Mountain is not the granite, but the lichens which grow on practically all the weathered stone. Behaving like booby traps, these pioneer plants have tricked a number of venturesome climbers to their deaths. In a rain they absorb water and become quite slippery, almost as if the stone were coated with grease. In dry weather they crumble underfoot and the tiny particles roll like shot to start a hiker sliding. Walking on almost level ground can become an adventure. The lichens are a pioneer plant form, a symbiotic relationship of fungi and algae. A fungus, unable to manufacture carbohydrates when alone, must live as a parasite on another plant. An alga can manufacture sugar or starch, provided it is kept moist and has the necessary ingredients. Working as partners, the fungi absorb and hold moisture and dissolve some essential chemicals from the rock; the algae mix these and cook with the sun’s energy to make food for the partnership. Their assault is the first step in reducing stone to soil. In this duty they are followed by grasses, weeds, shrubs and finally trees. There are three growth types of fungi: crustose, which appears as thin crusts on the rocks, and is the most prevalent at Stone Mountain; foliose, which has leaflike body and draws almost recognizable pictures; and fruticose, which stands up in mossy little clumps. Two young explorers beside a rain pit at the top, where fairy shrimp and the rare Amphianthus pusillus live. {uncaptioned} Stone Mountain has a rare genus of the crustose, the Pyrenopsis phaecocca which is found only in Georgia, on the granite outcrops of the Piedmont section from Atlanta to Augusta. Another crustose variety is a dull, dark red and grows in splotches, so it looks as if a boy with a wide brush had been smearing the boulders with barn paint. Some of Stone Mountain’s fruticose lichens stand up like little powder puffs an inch or two tall, and are comparative to the extensive reindeer moss of Alaska’s tundras. In a long drought many of the little clumps break off and go blowing about the mountainside like miniature tumbleweeds. Veteran quarrymen have noted that it takes about 25 years for a freshly broken piece of granite to weather sufficiently for lichens to grow. Most spectacular of all Stone Mountain’s plant life are the trees. Gnarled and twisted red cedars, almost a foot in diameter, cling desperately to narrow cracks in the deep slopes. Some are estimated at 500 to 800 years old, and they look every bit of their age. Pines, stooped and bent by mountain winds and stunted by long summer droughts, poke their roots into rock crevices and strain mightily to widen the slits. Some of these may be 150 years old. On the other hand, a giant loblolly growing in the rich red loam at the foot of the mountain, near the grist mill, measured nine feet in circumference, and had only 90 growth rings. Along the foot trail up the west slope are tall slim pines growing almost normally in what appears to be little patches of dirt. There may be deep loam-filled crevices below, but the health of the trees in such sparse soil attests to the rich mineral content. High up on the eastern slope, where a little silt has accumulated, is a small pine forest called Buzzard’s Roost. {uncaptioned} {uncaptioned} A rare tree is the Quercus Georgiana, or Georgia oak, which grows, but hardly flourishes, on Stone Mountain and neighboring outcrops. It has small glossy leaves two or three inches long, and tiny acorns. Few grow taller than about 25 feet. Where enough dirt collects there may be blackberries, huckleberries, and muscadine vines. Songbirds flock in great numbers to the gardens and groves around the foot of Stone Mountain, but there is little wild life up on the rock, itself. The soaring birds, such as vultures and hawks, are well acquainted with the updrafts which lift them skyward like elevators when the wind strikes the steep, smooth slopes, and they know where to find the best rides for each direction the wind blows. While the memorial was being carved, workmen noticed a large hawk that soared by at eye level nearly every day, apparently quite interested in what they were doing. The men began leaving scraps of food at a certain place near the top of the carving. The bird flew in for lunch every afternoon, and he did not seem to mind if the men were working quite near. However, the loud roar of the jet torch disturbed him. When it was in operation he delayed his lunch until the flame was turned off. The workmen placed their lunches in a locker in a shed at the foot of the mountain every morning. They began finding the latch unfastened and the tastiest sandwiches missing, and soon identified the thief by footprints in the dust—a raccoon. A more intricate latch kept the coon out of the locker. The men put out food for him, and he always picked it up after they were gone, but he did not fare as well on charity as he had done while stealing. Stone Mountain has birds and bees and shrimp and lizards, but no snakes. Harold Cox reported that he had not seen a single one in all his years there. |
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