There are two species
of witch-alder, dwarf witch-alder, Fothergilla
gardenii, and mountain witch-alder, F.
major.The former as its vernacular
name suggest is smaller in all parts.According to the range maps I referenced both are found in this
area, but based on the exceptionally large size I have only seen the later in
the wild, and that was in Buck’s PocketState Park along the
road/trail to the primitive camp ground.Unfortunately most of the population has apparently been destroyed by road
maintenance.This is not really surprising
considering the largest mountain camellia, Stewartia ovata , anybody I know, including aficionados, had ever seen was
first girdled then cut down during maintenance projects.Offers to do something productive, like the
removal of a couple of invasive exotic species, were rebuffed due to a desire
to specifically protect one exotic species, and uncertainty about my competence in correctly identifying plants in the other
case.Meanwhile greedy mushroom
collectors planning to "Get them all" were apparently successful at wiping out
the entire early morel mushroom population on the first and last day I ever saw
any there, making me hope they either choked on them and/or ate a lethal dose of about 4 pounds.
With such a track record I have little confidence in the both the need and method
for a pine beetle salvage at the primitive campground considering that affected trees were transported through areas with unaffected trees rather than being left in place so the beetles would not be spread. Additionally since then a new power line has been installed resulting in an eroded scar right through one of the most botanically diverse portions of the park while invasive exotics continue to spread and nothing ever seems done about wildflower populations that are being loved to death such as a bouquet of Virginia bluebells that was discarded in front of the ranger station. In other news there are(/were?) Virginia bluebells at Bucks Pocket State Park as well as the Alabama state champion hophornbeam, Ostrya virginiana. At least the largest mountain witch-alder
also remains, assuming it survives the mistreatment where the root zone was buried with spoil when the road was graded along with the rest of the population. The only way I even knew any
mountain witch-alder existed there was seeing them in bloom, which looks like short white bottlebrushes, otherwise the leaves look very
much like witch hazel, Hamamelis
virginiana, which is in the same family.The genus Fothergilla is named
for Dr. John Fothergill who funded William Bartram until early in the
Revolutionary War. Dr. Fothergill died before the war ended, and the collection William Bartram sent him was forwarded to the British Museum of Natural History, but it was not unpacked until decades into the next century.
