Pinecones, scorched by prescribed fire, re-seed in the forest. Wildflowers and wildlife, inluding the eastern box turtle, abound in the Talladega. Photos © Jimmy and Sierra Stiles
Somewhere on the ridgeline above western Alabama’s Mayfield Creek, it becomes hard to pin down exactly what kind of landscape surrounds me. The terrain, incised by deep creek bottoms pockmarked with beaver ponds and a smattering of oak-hickory and yellow pine, is hilly enough to conjure images of Appalachia. But on the ridgetops, the world is all coastal plain, a monochromatic green mosaic of longleaf pine and the electric new growth of ferns. Above the blackened, alkaline-scented embers of a recent burn, the pines are majestic, even as waist-high saplings. The whole forest seems to have some sort of identity crisis, stuck indecisively between the mountains and the great river valleys of the South.
Compared to their counterparts in the lower coastal plain, however, the longleaf pines above Mayfield Creek, one of the largest roadless areas in the Talladega National Forest’s Oakmulgee Ranger District, garner little notice. Granted, longleaf pines have taken on an almost mythical quality in the South after being brought back from near extinction due to years of fire suppression and habitat degradation. But that lofty distinction has mostly been reserved for the pines spreading out across the wiregrass savannas and flatwoods near the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. That region is the classic home of longleaf, an area that southern writer Janisse Ray lovingly refers to as “the landscape that owns my body.” Indeed, the longleaf savannas and flatwoods have become icons of restoration and environmental legacy in the South, an ecosystem that attracts packed group outings for sapling planting parties or walks though longleaf woodlands.
But in the Talladega, straddling the Fall Line between the Appalachian uplands and the Gulf Coastal Plain, the longleaf has little more than a tenuous hold on thin ridgetop soils. This far north, only isolated areas of longleaf stretch in a broken belt across the Fall Line’s highest uplands. This upland or montane longleaf pine—a close cousin to those nearer the coast—is less understood and much more rare than those nearly 100 miles south. There the pines spread wide across broad floodplains and lowlands for hundreds of acres, complete with their own suites of organisms—reptiles, amphibians and birds—adapted to life with the conifers.
In the Talladega, however, longleaf pines are more solitary, huddling together in isolated patches only on the uppermost crowns of high ridgelines. They do well in the dry soil, taking full advantage of terrain that oaks and other hardwoods find largely inhospitable. As a result, they remain mostly hidden from view, forgotten by the public. The trappings of the South’s great longleaf forests, though, still echo above Mayfield Creek. Endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers live in the pines’ largest stands, darting elusively from tree to tree. Threading their way through fallen needles, scarlet snakes and six-lined racerunners scuttle underfoot. The occasional alligator and bald eagle make their presence known in the creek bottoms.
While there are no real differences in appearance between upland and lowland longleaf, the ecological distinction between the two types results from a mix of natural history, geography and climate. In classic lowland longleaf forests, a combination of well-drained, sandy soils and an open landscape historically allowed for the trees’ broad distribution. Before human settlement, occasional fires burned across the plains and rolling hills unimpeded, clearing out the woody plants that encroach on the pines and choke them out. Combined with the soil and warmer temperatures, this habitat formed the perfect recipe for far-reaching stands of longleaf. At the height of its existence, longleaf pine stretched an estimated 90 million acres across the southeastern United States.
Farther north near the Talladega, the dominant forest type is oak mixed with yellow and loblolly pine, with longleaf an unlikely and distant runner-up. The presence of high, dry ridgelines, however, allows some upland longleaf to survive. The irony in this landscape is that the longleaf forests—one of the South’s wildest lineages—now rely almost entirely on human intervention. Like its brethren to the south, upland longleaf exist today only under the planned regime of prescribed fire; the frequent natural fires that once swept across the South have long been snuffed out. Without them, longleaf stands are quickly reduced to a few scattered saplings in isolated gaps in the canopy. Today, prescribed burning is the only way the pines can get their fix.
Much of the reason behind this modern-day dilemma can be found in the Talladega’s past. Before it was designated as a national forest in 1936, the land comprising the Talladega had a history of settlement much like many of the South’s present-day national forests. Within a stone’s throw of the forest boundary, a series of Native American mounds—known today as Moundville—mark the spot that was the most populated city in North America eight centuries ago. After white settlers arrived, the forest was dotted with homes, churches and small communities. Several of the churches and graveyards remain today. These settlers snuffed out fires induced by lightning strikes and cleared forested land. By the 1930s, the 156,000 acres of the Oakmulgee Ranger District was represented by 60 percent cutover land, and any hint of the once-natural fire regime had long since disappeared. Nationwide, roughly 3 percent of the longleaf pine’s original distribution was left standing.
Restoring the unusual blend of upland longleaf and bottomland hardwoods has been a challenge for the Talladega, involving a complex and ever-changing mosaic of burn regimes that mimic natural fires of the past. My walk above Mayfield Creek takes me through snapshots of this succession. One stand is still scattered with the charred shells of longleaf cones, their scales curled backward from the heat and seedlings just sprouting through the blackened earth. Just down the ridge, the understory of another longleaf stand is crowded in a competing tangle of tulip poplar saplings. In the coveheads falling off to either side of me, the branching crowns of oaks spread out over the shadows of mature hardwood forests. This is a landscape fraught with uncertainty, but one in which the pines seem to have thrived. Succession, of course, is always their destiny, but the longleaf remains, albeit with some help.
At the end of my hike, looking out over one of Alabama’s wildest watersheds, I’m tempted to feel let down, knowing the forest around me has been so planned and structured. A heavily managed wilderness is something we try to avoid, whether it be officially designated or not. But in the end, for a forest that owns part of us, the least we can do is give something back. To the longleaf in the Talladega, at least, we have.