A Dicentra story and some exciting news (the lede is buried deep).

To a casual observer, the picture above is a simple, perhaps quintessential, representation of Spring: a fresh green plantlet sprouting from bare earth. To me, it represents far more. The plant depicted above is a Dicentra — either squirrel corn or Dutchman’s britches (I’ve yet met a botanist who can distinguish the two species by their foliage alone). Dicentras are rich cove specialists, meaning they grow in pockets of moist forest with neutral or alkaline-trending soils. Appalachian rich coves host the most diverse assemblage of herbaceous plants outside the tropics. This particular bottomland was once a lush and rich cove but a century of agriculture, beginning nearly 200 years ago, depauperized it. The forest was logged, the soil drained and grazed, then tilled and planted in corn. Over the past century, trees have grown back and heath shrubs grow in their shade, but the corn (and corn-eaters) stole the soil’s nutrients and the wildflower seedbank dwindled.

This particular Dicentra emerged in this new territory on the edge of a Rhododendron thicket (acid-lovers not associated with rich coves). The soil around it appears fresh and disturbed. It is fresh because Helene’s violent floodwaters deposited it a year and a half ago. Dicentras grow from bulblets (actually “corms”) nestled in shallow, rocky soil. Squirrel corn’s little corms are yellow (thus their name); the corms of Dutchman’s britches are pinkish. I think I know where this particular Dicentra’s corm (or perhaps seed) originated. Over a mile up this meandering creek is a splendid rich cove filled with ramps, Delphinium, bellwort, and Dicentras. Helene washed tons of mineral-rich sandy soil from the watershed above and deposited generous quantities in this flat floodplain. Among the flood’s sediment tumbled seeds, corms, tubers, and rootlets of countless plants. Over the years, and especially in the months since Helene, I’ve noticed rich cove species slowly expanding their range over these acres. Every few years a big rain overflows the creek’s banks, bringing fresh soil and plant parts to the floodplain. Every few decades a huge storm does the work of hundreds of moderate floods, spreading silt and seeds into previously unreached corners of the watershed. This is what Helene accomplished. The combination of soil replenishment from the mountainsides and movement of plants is how rich coves formed in the first place, and now I get to watch it unfold over my lifetime. I’ll keep an eye on this little Dicentra pioneer — perhaps it will gain enough strength to bloom in a couple of years, and perhaps it will even expand into a little Dicentra patch. 

This little Dicentra story is part of a much bigger story: the effects of a superstorm like Helene on Appalachia’s more-than-human lifeforms and communities. In a fortunate turn of events, I’ve been given an opportunity to tell this story to a broader audience. On Monday, I signed a contract with UNC Press to write a book about post-Helene ecology. I’ve worked on this project for over a year, and I’ll be writing it for most of another one. Fingers crossed, we're aiming for publication around September 2028 (I've learned that publishing, like writing itself, is a slow business). The book, yet-to-be-titled, is a story of ecological resilience, deep time, and the hard-learned wisdom of native species and natural communities. There will be chapters on mountain meteorology, hellbenders, cicadas, rich coves, and other species and communities that have something to teach us about how to live through a changing climate in this dynamic mountain landscape.

Over the coming months, I plan to share little bits of content -- while staying within my contractual obligations and maintaining some semblance of consciousness hygiene. I’m virtually absent from social media these days -- I’ve long hated donating my content to our digital overlords and I’m frightened by the Meta-stization of our society. Now those same digital overlords are conjuring AI monsters to do we(they!)-don’t-even-know-what. I’ve developed an intuitive resistance to feeding my content into their ginormous and unpredictable Frankenstein experiment. Now I'm wary of sharing my writing via this blog. Is it even possible to share writing on the internet and maintain custody of your own thoughts? This discussion is to be continued in some format...

Dutchman's britches (Dicentra cucullaria), hung out on a line.

Squirrel corn flowers (Dicentra canadensis)