Everyone who takes the time to read this willhave their very own things that make the

Woods special to them, but let me share withyou what makes the Woods special to me.The Hitchcock Woods is very biodiverse. Byprofession and by personal interest, I am abotanist. Since I was a young boy playing inthe forests and fields of the midlands of SouthCarolina, I have always been fascinated by allthe different plants, animals, and diverselandscapes that I encountered! I am only sorry that Ididn’t start learning the Latin names of the plants andanimals sooner.

If you know the names and recognize the variations inthe pine trees and where they grow, it makes your time inthe forests much more interesting, not unlike going to aparty and seeing your friends and understanding therelationships that exist among them and suddenly noticingsomeone in a different “habitat” or relationship.

So what is biodiversity? Simply put, biodiversity is thevariation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, andthe entire Earth, and it is often used as a measure of thehealth of biological systems. You can discuss or measure itby county, state, nation, or by a given pond, desert, orforest if you like. For instance some of the most biodiversestates in the United States are California, Texas, Hawaii,Alabama, and Florida. The reasons for their biodiversityhave to do with size of area, diversity of climates, soils, andtopography.

South Carolina has four physiographic provinces: thecoastal plain, the sandhills, the piedmont, and the

mountains. Aiken County is primarily in thesandhills, a transitional province between the

coastal plain and the piedmont. Since theboundaries of the natural world are seldomstraight lines, there are pieces of bothpiedmont and coastal plain in our county.

This helps to account for our countyhaving so much biodiversity; we have

diversity of climate, soils and topography, andwe are a large county as well. Aiken is the fifth

largest county in the state, and we have pieces of threephysiographic provinces. According to Dr. PatrickMcMillan at Clemson University we have 1,664 plantspecies in our county, probably second only to BerkeleyCounty.

This brings me to Hitchcock Woods and its biodiversity.I am often asked if there are threatened, endangered, orsensitive species (TES) in the Woods and my reply is, “notto my knowledge.” For biologists threatened andendangered species have legal status with state and federalagencies. There are some unusual plants and places in theWoods and some blending of upcountry and lowcountryspecies. For instance if you go to the Low Country Ride, alovely place in early spring, you can see Spanish mossgracefully hanging from most of the trees and in the samearea I have found mountain hydrangea growing on one ofthe slopes. Not too far from there near Bebbington Springs,you can find Galax, another mountain plant, growing justabove the springs about fifty feet off the trail. This wholearea seems to have pieces of the lower and upper parts ofour state right in the middle of the sandhills.

Ø HARRY E. SHEALY, JR.ŁIn one of my other favorite places in the

Woods called the Chalk Cliffs you can seeseveral very unusual plants. The cliffs are atype of soil formation called a Vaucluse–Udorthent slope, a hard clay dome. In thisgeneral area you can see longleaf pinesgrowing side by side with Virginia pines, anassociation not often seen. The Virginiapines are not rare; they just do not usuallygrow this far south but you can find themin the Woods and several other locations inAiken County. These are called disjunctpopulations. In this same area is anotherinteresting disjunct population of a plantknown as ground juniper. It is probably thesouthernmost known population of a plantfound in the Appalachian Mountains all theway to Newfoundland. This population wasfirst found by the famous Aiken botanist,Henry W. Ravenel, in the 1870s.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’tmention that Kalmia, mountain laurel,grows in the Woods and in other sites inAiken County. To me the HitchcockWoods has so many diverse plants, plantassociations and habitats; all of whichcreate biodiversity and a healthyfunctioning forest. Next time you are in theWoods look for the plants growing xeric, ordry areas, and compare them with plants inthe mesic, or moist sites. They should bedifferent. Look for water and see whichplants grow in the hydric habitats.Compare the different soils even thoughmost every soil in the Woods is a type ofsand. Check out the topographicaldifferences. All of these subtle differencescreate the wonderful biodiversity that I findso special about the Woods and I hope youwill too!. a

What Makes Hitchcock Woods Special… To Me?

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