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Blessed with perfect autumnal weather: views of Monviso, stunning colours in the vineyards and spectacular food and wine all the way
A species of Sandwort, presumably the Piedmont Sandwort, also called One-flower Stitchwort. It has several Latin synonyms, often called Minuartia uniflora, but recently renamed Geocarpon uniflorum. This species is a common resident of shallow depressions on granite flatrock exposures. It typically colonizes soils just slightly deeper and dryer than the places colonized by Elf Orpine.
Location: Camp Meeting Rock, a property owned by The Nature Conservancy in the western piedmont of Georgia.
From here, looking east from the Blue Ridge crest, you see the Piedmont, a broad plain dotted with few low hills. Noting similarities to their European homeland, early settlers named this land "piemonte," Italian meaning "foot-of-the-mountains."
The Piedmont's hills and small mountains rise as isolated peaks rather than long, straight ridges. Called "monadnocks," these hills survive as subtle eroded reminders of great mountains that existed long before the Blue Ridge.
The Piedmont has been dramatically altered by human activity. Three centuries of tilling and grazing removed the original hardwood forest. Good soils have eroded away, but what remains is still among the most intensely used earth in the United States.
The Piedmont includes portions of ten states. It stretches from the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mountains to the western edge of the Coastal Plain.
Photo and transcription by Kevin Borland.