GoBeechnut Gardens

A legendary Ozark chestnut tree, thought extinct, is rediscovered The chinquapin was supposed to have been wiped out by blight. Now one determined Missouri naturalist is hand-pollinating trees in secret groves to bring it back.

I designed this poster for a contest earlier this year. It’s inspired by the boardwalk at the Cottonwood Trail because of the most essential feature of wetlands around here—the pale bones of dead trees standing like forgotten pillars of times past. Wetlands are anything but dead and forgotten. They’re like an ecological phoenix—out of the ashes (or rather, drowned remains of woodlands) comes life. Wetlands seem like boggy, stagnant depressions where everything goes to die—but they are constantly shifting and changing, flooding and drying, full of life in between. Look closely at those ghostly figures and you see hollows for birds to nest, the boggy sediment is teeming with the roots of vigorous wetland plants and it’s all operating as a massive natural filtration system for groundwater. It’s where living things exist in so many layers, all with their own function. A small few of which are represented below... Taxodium distichum (bald cypress, an amazing versatile tree and personal favorite), Juncus effusus (rush), Sagittarius latifolia (broadleaf arrowhead, an edible with interesting history), Typha latifolia (cattail, very popular, excellent for bioremediation and also an edible)...

The boardwalk itself makes it possible for us to observe these lovely features up close with ease—without going out and getting rubber waders.

I shared a very interesting article recently about T. distichum, bald cypress, being one of the 5th oldest living trees in the world in Black Creek, North Carolina at an estimated 2,654 years old. You’ll also find them planted downtown Spartanburg near The Little River Coffee Bar, as well as in front of the Spartanburg Community College Downtown Campus.

Anyway, I’m selling 13x19 prints of this poster for $38... you can find frames this size online pretty easy. lemme know if you want one! -Elder