Just outside Wendell, North Carolina (an eastern satellite town of Raleigh), Temple Flat Rock protects a striking expanse of exposed granite—about 5,270 square meters—that supports a specialized community of lichens, bryophytes, and flowering plants. In 1984, the Temple family donated this unusual Registered Natural Heritage Site to The Nature Conservancy. In the mid-1990s, stewardship transferred to Triangle Land Conservancy (TLC), and Temple Flat Rock became the organization’s first conservation easement.
Temple Flat Rock is a granite outcrop that showcases a broad exposure of the Rolesville granitic batholith. In spring, the outcrop can be dotted with Appalachian sandwort (Minuartia glabra) and elf-orpine (Diamorpha smallii), two of the site’s signature plants. The rock also supports mosses and an impressive lichen flora (over 44 species), along with hardy eastern red cedars. On cool days, the open granite becomes basking habitat for reptiles such as fence lizards and ground skinks.
Beyond the outcrop itself, the preserve is notable as a Piedmont prairie restoration site. Like the tallgrass prairies of the Midwest or the longleaf pine ecosystems of coastal North Carolina, the Piedmont savanna–prairie complex is now a nearly extinct ecosystem. Historical accounts from European explorers who traveled through North Carolina’s Piedmont from the mid-16th through mid-18th centuries describe expansive grasslands—tussocky tall grasses and sky-reaching forbs beneath an open canopy of post oaks—sometimes extending for miles before grading into riparian forest or wooded hills. By the start of the American Civil War, these landscapes had largely faded from memory. Today, restoration sites exist around Charlotte and the Triangle, and TLC land manager Walt Tysinger has worked to bring elements of this ecosystem back at both Horton Grove (near Historic Stagville, north of Durham) and Temple Flat Rock.
Currently, Temple Flat Rock includes roughly 5 acres of granite outcrop, 15 acres of mixed hardwoods, and 16 acres of grassland established on former agricultural fields and horse pasture. Like many prairie restoration efforts, one of the biggest challenges is controlling aggressive plants—non-native fescue (Festuca spp.) and sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata), along with native sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) that readily colonizes open ground. Using a combination of dormant-season burns, targeted herbicide spot-spraying, and bush hogging, managers have been able to reduce invasive pressure enough to establish native warm-season grasses from plugs, including Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), and splitbeard bluestem (Andropogon tenarius). Other grassland species you may see include prickly pear (Opuntia humifusa), common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), broomsedge (Andropogon virginicus), and thickets of Chickasaw plum (Prunus angustifolia).
In the Triangle, many remnant grasslands and prairie restoration projects occur on the base-rich soils of the Triassic Basin, underlain by magnesium- and iron-rich diabase. These soils often contain montmorillonite clay, which shrinks and swells dramatically and can inhibit tree root growth—conditions that can help keep grasslands open. Temple Flat Rock’s prairie establishment, in contrast, occurs on acidic Louisburg (Typic Hapludults) and Appling (Typic Kanhapludults) soils. Even so, the site is so xeric and well-drained that—with the right disturbance regime (especially fire)—a grassland ecosystem can feel perfectly at home here. The ongoing restoration work at Temple Flat Rock is a powerful reminder of both the ecological and cultural heritage of North Carolina’s Piedmont prairie landscape.
The preserve also includes oak–hickory forest, where past storms have left their mark; one dramatic example is hurricane “throwdown” from Fran, still evident in places.
For more information about Temple Flat Rock, visit Triangle Land Conservancy’s website.
Sense of Place 