An Abundance of Curiosities: The Natural History of North Carolina's Coastal Plain

The Coastal Plain of North Carolina is a popular tourist area that receives approximately 12.1 million visitors each year. Eric G. Bolen and James F. Parnell's natural history of the area offers a nature-focused walk through its distinctive geological features and plant and animal communities, from the Outer Banks to the Atlantic Ocean. The text includes visits to the mysterious Carolina bays, Lake Waccamaw, dark cypress swamps, the Great Dismal Swamp, and blackwater streams, as well as rivers and sounds, uplands, and the Carolina Sandhills. An afterword discusses the motivations for saving endangered species, and infoboxes scattered throughout the text offer stand-alone explorations of historical and cultural topics associated with the area.

Format: Hardback
Length: 277 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2022
Publisher: University of Georgia Press

North Carolina's coastal region is a popular tourist destination, attracting approximately 12.1 million visitors each year, or roughly 25 percent of all North Carolina visitors. Comprising twenty-eight of the easternmost counties in the state, the Coastal Plain is the largest and most diverse of North Carolina's three biogeographical regions. Eric G. Bolen and James F. Parnell's natural history of the Coastal Plain provides a nature-focused walk through the area's distinctive geological features and plant and animal communities. The book begins with an overview of early naturalists who marveled at the region's natural treasures and continues with a journey that includes the Outer Banks and their beaches, dunes, wild horses, and maritime forests. It also explores the form and functions of the region's extensive salt marshes, visits the mysterious Carolina bays, Lake Waccamaw, dark cypress swamps, the Great Dismal Swamp, and blackwater streams. Along the way, readers will encounter the habitat and concerns for the last remaining wild population of red wolves and the recently established nesting colonies of wood storks. Rivers and sounds, highlighted by seagrasses, bottomland forests, and eel migrations, come next, followed by a tour of uplands, where bogs garnished with carnivorous plants dot wet savannahs. The Carolina Sandhills, with their stately forests of longleaf pine, colorful tree frogs, burrowing snakes, and unique fishes, are also presented. To conclude, an afterword discusses the motivations for saving endangered species. Infoboxes scattered throughout the text offer stand-alone explorations of historical and cultural sites.

Weight: 1040g
Dimension: 186 x 235 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780820361765