This Land, Your Land

A prescribed burn at Hanging Rock State Park in the next couple of months will protect the endangered Schweinitz's sunflower, the Division of Parks and Recreation said this morning.

The burn in 2.5 acres containing the Schweinitz's sunflower is scheduled for this winter or early spring, as weather permits.

The Schweinitz's sunflower is endemic to the Piedmont of North and South Carolina, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. It is a perennial herb that grows from 1 to 2 meters tall from a cluster of tuberous roots (see below).

Regular fire cycles are necessary for the flower to survive, the state parks news release says, and the burn is to remove competing Virginia pines and other shrubby vegetation shading the sunflowers.

Schweinitz's sunflower (Helianthus schweinitzii)

The new issue of The Steward, the state parks newsletter, details the volunteer effort to construct the 1.8-mile summit trail at Elk Knob State Park near Boone.

The five-and-a-half-year project took more than 6,000 hours of labor, the article says. Most of that labor was supplied by Appalachian State University students and members of scout groups, outdoors clubs and civic organizations.

The trail, which climbs about 1,500 feet to the 5,520-foot peak, replaces "a barely navigable, steep and exhausting vehicle trail as the only route to the summit."

Elk Knob is the tallest mountain wholly in Watauga County, the article says. The park was designated a natural area in 2003 and became a state park in 2007. Since then, development has been slow, with a ranger station, picnic grounds and parking areas completed in 2008 as "interim facilities."

The November issue of The Steward also has articles about the dedication of the Neuse River Trail in Raleigh as a 6.5-mile segment of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, about Hanging Rock State Park's 75th anniversary, and the opening of an interim office for Grandfather Mountain State Park on N.C. 105 in Banner Elk.

Then N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation is reporting "near-record attendance" in 2010 at North Carolina’s state parks and state recreation areas.

Total visits came to 14 million, slightly less that the all-time record of 14.2 million visits in 2009, a news release says. Twenty-one state parks or recreation areas out of 39 in the system reported an increase in visits in 2010.

Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Dare County reported the highest attendance at 1.47 million visits, an increase of 3 percent over last year.

Mayo River State Park in Rockingham County opened to the public in April, and attracted 36,772 visitors during the year.

Parks with significant increases in visitation included Hanging Rock State Park in Stokes County (38 percent), New River State Park in Ashe and Alleghany counties (31 percent), Goose Creek State Park in Beaufort County (29) percent and Pettigrew State Park in Washington and Tyrell counties (26 percent).

More than a half million people were registered to camp in state parks during the year.