Carolina Environmental Diversity Explorations
Elevations and forest types · By Dirk Frankenberg
An exposed bald
Figure 8. Plant growth is proceeding very slowly on this bald. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)
Figure 8 shows a maximally exposed site near the top of Craggy Garden Pinnacle at 5500 feet. Note the exposed rock with pioneer plants growing on the thin soils that have collected in depressions, and the grasses and heath shrubs in the more heavily vegetated areas. It appears that plant succession is occurring here as well, but this example of primary succession (the sequence of plant occurrence on previously unvegetated habitat) may take decades to centuries to proceed much further than you see it here.
