Created 28-Sep-20
Modified 16-Aug-23
Congaree National Park protects the largest remaining tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest. in North America. American beech, water tupelo, bald cypress, hickory trees dominate the forest canopy while switchgrass and dwarf palmettos are abundant in the understory.
The soil, known as Dorovan muck, is a rich mixture of clay and organic material from dead leaves. As the Congaree River overflows its banks and floods the forest, it brings nutrients from upstream - further enriching the soil.
The photos in this gallery are from a short visit in November 2020. We arrived in late afternoon and walked the 2.4 mile boardwalk until sunset - exiting the Park to the calls of Barred, Eastern screech, and Great Horned Owls. The next morning we tried to walk the boardwalk loop again but found that the rising Cedar Creek had put the lower end of the boardwalk under two feet of water in just twelve hours.
Leaving the Park after a picnic lunch, we drove through miles of cotton and peanut fields, stopping to photograph them and the thousands of red-winged blackbirds in a recently-picked peanut field near Wertz Crossroads, South Carolina.
Category:
Subcategory:
Subcategory Detail:
Keywords:
All images © Christopher P. Migliaccio
