The Nature Conservancy’s nearly 16,000-acre Green Swamp Preserve represents one of the best remaining examples of the region’s longleaf pine savanna. The understory is filled with carnivorous plants, including pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, and sundews, and the preserve is also home to a number of orchid species. Much of the landscape is dominated by pocosin—thick, shrubby boglands—which makes the Green Swamp an excellent place to spend a day botanizing. It also holds some pleasant surprises for birders, including Henslow’s and Bachman’s sparrows.
If you choose to visit the Green Swamp this time of year, the pocosins will be largely dried up, but you’ll get to see pitcher plants in full bloom. On our walk, the bright, upright tubes of Sarracenia flava rose from the savanna like little lanterns—impossible to miss once your eyes adjusted to the texture of wiregrass, shrubs, and open sun.
Sense of Place 