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...

What happened to the river's hellbenders after Helene's flood?

On June 26, a torrential downpour over the headwaters caused the South Toe to suddenly rise to 1000 cubic feet/second. Unsurprisingly,...