The puck's orpine, a kind of succulent, grows on a sunny granite outcropping at Panola Mountain. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
This story was updated on Wednesday, July 2 at 11:59 a.m.
Panola Mountain State Park is getting a bit bigger — and experts are hoping it’ll preserve the unique environment of the park for years to come.
The Conservation Fund bought about 180 acres of land right next to Panola Mountain in Henry and Rockdale Counties. Now, they’re selling that land to the state of Georgia.
Roberta Moore, a senior field representative for the Conservation Fund, says this land used to be privately owned, family hunting land. She calls it the Benton Trust after that family. It’s big and wooded, nestled right up against the South River and Panola Mountain, which is part of Georgia’s Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area.
But Moore says her organization has been interested in it for years for conservation.
“You can already see all the development happening along there, and even just up the road, you’ll see some big subdivisions getting built in any direction,” Moore said.
Development is encroaching on this area, and is threatening habitats for animals and rare plants in this part of Georgia.
Moore says the newly acquired Benton Trust land can act as a buffer between metro Atlanta’s growth and Panola Mountain.
“We’re thinking about that growth and where that growth and natural areas meet — and can you provide space in between those to allow habitat to still exist with some protection, other species to exist in their own space without interference from human populations,” Moore said.
Two spiders hand off a tree on a property soon to be added to Panola Mountain State Park. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
Conservation large and small
This tract of forest is covered in prickly underbrush, until every now and then it breaks into a clearing. Underfoot — granite, covered by teeny, tiny, little plants.
“This is … the common name is puck’s orpine — sedum pucilum, it’s a succulent,” said Hannah Umstead, a botanist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
The puck’s orpine is a member of the same group of plants you might have as a houseplant.
Plants grow on the granite of Panola Mountain. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
On Panola Mountain, Umstead carefully nudges the tiny plants that have little flowers blossoming at their tips. She said they’re remarkably resilient and hardy despite how small the plant is.
“They have a special adaptation to retain water in their leaves, and they can survive out here with very minimal rainfall, and can survive the periods of drought,” Umstead said.
The puck’s orpine can also survive extreme heat.
“These outcrops, in the summer, can get up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit,” Umstead said.
This plant isn’t listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, but in Georgia it’s considered threatened at the state level.
“It’s not very likely to go extinct in the near future, but it has a lot of long term threats that could be detrimental to the species throughout its range and in the state,” Umstead explained.
In Georgia, the granite outcroppings the puck’s orpine calls home are threatened by development, like suburban development. Without federal protections, there isn’t a lot of legal force to protect this unique plant or habitat, but Umstead says because of the state threatened status, Georgia has a lot of potential to protect the puck’s orpine within its state owned parks and conservation areas.
By protecting Panola’s granite outcroppings, Umstead said Georgia isn’t only protecting prioritized species, like the puck’s orpine, that are designated as threatened on the state level. The state is also protecting a host of other flora and fauna that use that habitat, like the Heggie’s rock jumping spider which can be found on these outcrops.
This tract of forest next to Panola Mountain State Park has stayed undeveloped as family-owned hunting land for years. (Matthew Pearson/WABE News)
Which is exactly why the state of Georgia bought this property and is looking to include it officially in Panola Mountain State Park.
Georgia’s State Wildlife Action Plan outlines conservation and management goals for years at a time, including protecting threatened species and the Piedmont’s granite outcrops.
Georgia used money from a program created by the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Act, which Georgians passed in 2018 by a whopping 83% vote to take a portion of sales tax from the sale of outdoor recreation gear and put that money toward conservation and improving state outdoor recreational spaces.
“It ties the money to the use of the spaces itself, which I think is really smart,” Moore with The Conservation Fund said.
Moore said the land transaction between The Conservation Fund and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources will be completed later this summer.
Although the state isn’t planning on building any facilities or trails on this new piece of land right now, it is looking to host ranger-led hikes through the conservation space.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated where Moore works. She works for The Conservation Fund.
