Savannas are magnificent wildflower gardens. In the heat of the summer the fringed orchids are torches through the meadows. Blue-eyed and yellow eyed grass, white eyed sedge. Fall brings on the composites, purple spires of liatris, also called blazing star, brown rayless sunflowers, goldenrod, bigelowia and coreopsis. The aster balduina pools like orange juice in the wettest places and clumps of pearl-tipped hatpins stick the carpet of forbs to the flat earth.
White violets hover low.
In what is consider the first project of its kind in the nation and one of the largest land conservation projects in Mobile County history, Shell Oil, Williams, Exxon Mobil and BPAmoco have signed a three year agreement committing 10,000 acres of pine savannas and wetlands they own or lease, to be managed by the Nature Conservancy. Biological studies have shown that fire is as natural as rain in many parts in the Southeast, and regular burning can dramatically increase the number of species of animals and plants living in the forest. Fire introduced on wet pine savannas like those in Mobile County can increase diversity after a burn, from one to two common species per square yard to dozens per square yard. Biologists describe Grand Bay savanna as the largest and least disturbed wet pine savanna in existence, stretching from Pascagoula to Mobile Bay. You can also read about the importance of this agreement in a column written by Mobile Register Environment Editor Bill Finch.