THE FORESTS:

Forests on the island vary between upland maritime, lowland hardwood and old and new pine plantations. As part of their management plan, the Department of Natural Resources is removing diseased and stunted trees from areas of pine forest, planted in the 1950’s. The objective is to provide open ground for deer and turkey, as well as promoting the healthy growth of the remaining trees.

As a habitat, upland maritime forest has a much more varied ecological assemblage than the pine forests. This is a mixed oak-hardwood forest community of live oak, laurel oak, bay, holly, magnolia, cabbage palm and slash pine, with wax myrtles, broomsedge and panic grass at ground level.

Live oaks are always spectacular, but even more with age as their gnarled, tortured trunks support a wide assortment of vines and epiphytes.

An epiphyte is a plant which grows on the surface of another plant, drawing its moisture and nutrient requirements from the air. Live oak is host to two major epiphytes, resurrection fern and spanish moss. Resurrection fern received its name from its capacity to spring to life after a long dry period or a winter of apparent death. Spanish moss is a bromeliad and distantly related to the pineapple. Its tiny green flowers are barely distinguishable, and the distinctive flowing “moss” is, in reality, an interlocking mat of six-inch long plants.

Different vines become apparent at different seasons. Virginia creeper and poison ivy trace their paths up the tree trunks with glowing colors in the fall. Trumpet vine, cherokee rose and wisteria (introduced) are most noticeable in spring, while in summer grapevines weigh down trees and bushes alike under a heavy load of green leaves.

The lowland maritime forest is seen in the wetter lower lying areas of the island. It also is a mixed community, with live oak, water oak, loblolly pine, black gum, sweetgums, and sweetbay, with a shrub cover of wax myrtle and saw palmetto and a generous sprinkling of muscadine grapevines and blackberry bushes. In fall, the sweetgums become particularly showy. They are most noticeable on lower areas of the west perimeter road.

There is a pond, not readily accessible, lying not far from the road which heads east from Chocolate. It is a shallow pond, filled with iris, having a slightly deeper area surrounded by swamp black gums with buttressed roots, in whose branches nest Snowy Egrets. In the very tops of the tall pines surrounding the pond are the nests of the Great Blue Heron. Snakes and frogs are very evident in the water, among the iris plants.

Pines and palmetto are features of the Pleistocene soils of Georgia. Extensive pine forests occur on Sapelo today but much of their presence is a result of deliberate plantings in ditched and drained areas. In natural situations, longleaf pines are found in drier sites than slash pines, and pond pines are associated with more acid and poorly drained soils.

Associated with the more open pine areas are gallberry and blueberry bushes. This is an environment with an abundance of wildlife such as king snakes, diamondback rattlers and rat snakes. It is also an area suitable for management for deer and turkey, and so tree thinning, prescribed burning and mowing, in combination or separately, may be used by the Department of Natural Resources to enhance the standing stocks of deer and turkey.