FIELD | Thursday, June 22, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
This small-group experience is limited to ten participants and is now sold out. Please indicate interest on the Adult Ed Wait List for any spots that might come open. Thanks for your interest!
The Highlands of Roan: The very name sounds like something out of yore. Straddling the border of Tennessee’s Carter County and North Carolina’s Mitchell and Avery Counties, the Roan Highlands region is a showcase of biological diversity, punctuated by grassy balds, rhododendron gardens, high-elevation rock outcrops, southern Appalachian bogs, and rich spruce-fir forests. The Roan’s ecosystem, with more than 800 plant species and over 188 bird species, is one of the richest repositories of temperate zone biodiversity on earth, including more federally listed plant species than the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. While home to many distinctive and fascinating species, Roan Mountain is perhaps most famous for its stands of Catawba rhododendron (Rhododendron catawbiense) and flame azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum), considered the largest natural rhododendron garden in the world and celebrated for spectacular June displays of purple and gold. Naturalist, wildflower expert, and veteran guide Scott Dean and horticulturist Carson Ellis, curator of the Arboretum’s National Native Azalea Garden, are hike co-leaders. Together they pack an encyclopedic knowledge of local flora.
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