Celebrating a Botanical Treasure

Known for Georgia Plume, Big Hammock Landmark Turns 50

By LISA KRUSE

Big Hammock is an ancient, isolated sand ridge that rises nearly 100 feet from the Altamaha River floodplain near Glennville. It’s also one of Georgia’s amazing wild places.

As part of a same-named wildlife management area, Big Hammock is outstanding for its diverse natural communities. On the ridge, old-growth longleaf pine-and-oak scrub showcases lichens, grasses and scattered wildflowers on a white-sand canvas. The slopes descend through gnarled evergreen oak forest to pond cypress-tupelo strands. In between, sheltered mesic flats feature grand forests of white oak, spruce pine and hickory.

Another can’t-miss highlight is the largest known population of Georgia plume (Elliottia racemosa), a tree now found only in Georgia.

It’s no wonder that in 1976 the National Park Service dedicated about 950 acres of Big Hammock as a National Natural Landmark. Fifty years later, DNR is marking the golden anniversary of that designation and one of the state’s first conservation lands.

REMOTE AND UNTOUCHED

Early in my botanist career at DNR, I was given the job of surveying natural communities at Big Hammock Natural Area – part of the WMA – and developing a 50-year plan for the area’s stewardship. This work fulfilled my desire to explore a remote wild place.

At Big Hammock, the influence of the early stages of Georgia’s European settlement can still be felt. But because this property on the southeastern edge of Tattnall County was difficult to access and had nutrient-poor soils, it was never used to grow cotton or pines. And since it was protected in 1972 through Gov. Jimmy Carter’s Georgia Heritage Trust Program, fingerprints from modern land uses are sparse. Instead, the landscape shows only traces of other traditions: open grazing and woods burning.

Georgia plume is one beneficiary of this history of low-intensity land use. The species is a small tree in the understory of the tall live oak and magnolia forest on the Big Hammock sandhill. In June, the Georgia plume blooms in sprays of white flowers that catch the filtered light, evoking spring’s flowering dogwoods transitioning into a summer Coastal Plain landscape – white flowers mingling with dangling Spanish moss and sparkleberry bushes under an arching, evergreen canopy.

RARE PLANT STRONGHOLD

As a botanist, the ancient landscape at Big Hammock is fascinating, and Georgia plume is the anchor. In every other location known for this state-threatened tree, the heavy hand of habitat degradation has reduced populations to a few stems. But at Big Hammock, Georgia plume thrives across 400 acres of the sandhill, from the deepest and driest sands to “toe slopes” reaching toward river swamps.

How can this species show such versatility here while it is declining steadily elsewhere?

At the top of the sandhill, live oaks cannot persist and Georgia plume forms a nearly continuous canopy dwarfed by environmental stress. Exploring this area years ago, I felt like an elf and was thankful to be short and nimble, wending my way where few others would go, mapping out the Georgia plume and sparkleberry scrub forest.

At the base of Big Hammock, Georgia plume grows at the transition between sandhill and wet pine-oak flatwoods. Here, the Altamaha River floodplain creates a “fire shadow” – where the hammock was naturally sheltered from fires – and Georgia plume reaches 50 feet or higher alongside the live oaks.

The requirements for the plant to thrive and the relationship with fire at Big Hammock raise other questions. We’ve seen that Georgia plume will sprout after fire, but prescribed burns on the standard one- to three-year rotation appear to cause stands to decline. Where no fire occurs, however, Georgia plume stems can rot in the thick accumulation of leaf litter.

A better understanding of this species at Big Hammock would help us better steward remnant populations at other sites. There is work to be done.

VISITING BIG HAMMOCK

But this month, to celebrate the natural area’s allure and its 50th anniversary as a National Natural Landmark, your best bet is to take a trip to Big Hammock.

The location is remote. The facilities are few. However, the Georgia plume blooms from early to mid-June, heralding the summer solstice.

What better time to visit this amazing anomaly in the Altamaha River floodplain?

Note: Either a hunting or fishing license or a DNR lands pass is required to access Big Hammock. All are available at gooutdoorsgeorgia.com.

NATIONAL NATURAL LANDMARKS

• Program established in 1962 and administered by the National Park Service
• Recognizes and encourages conservation of sites that best illustrate the nation’s biological and geological heritage, from old-growth forest to troves of prehistoric fossils
• Sites determined via scientific evaluation are deemed nationally significant based on condition, illustrative character, rarity, diversity and value to science and education
• Participation is voluntary; ownership varies from public to private; public access is not required
• 604 landmarks in U.S., 11 in Georgia

GEORGIA LANDMARKS

Listed by county, name and status:

• Charlton, Clinch: Okefenokee Swamp (national wildlife refuge)
• Chatham: Wassaw Island (NWR)
• Columbia: Heggie’s Rock (Nature Conservancy preserve)
• Effingham: Ebenezer Creek Swamp (private)
• Emanuel: Camp E.F. Boyd Natural Area (Nature Conservancy preserve – called Ohoopee Dunes Preserve – designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974 with Lewis Island)
• Floyd: Marshall Forest (Nature Conservancy preserve; Georgia’s first National Natural Landmark, designated in 1966)
• Harris: Cason J. Callaway Memorial Forest (part of Callaway Resort and Gardens)
• McIntosh: Lewis Island Tract (part of Altamaha WMA) (Also see: “Island of Giants,” April 2024)
• Rockdale: Panola Mountain (state park)
• Tattnall: Big Hammock Natural Area (WMA)
• Thomas: Wade Tract Preserve (private; managed by Tall Timbers)

Lise Kruse is the senior botanist with DNR’s Wildlife Conservation Section.

Top: The Natural Landmark marker and DNR senior botanist Lisa Kruse at a stand of Georgia plume during an early visit to Big Hammock (GaDNR)

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