Each of Jamesland’s three provinces is its own world, offering a unique landscape with a distinct set of flora and fauna. In the Highland province, great topographical and geological variety supports a dizzying array of natural communities. At its very highest elevations, the cool, moist climate of Allegheny Mountain plays host to stands of red spruce and hardwoods like beech, birch, and maple that resemble the forests of the far north. The long sandstone ridges of the Ridge and Valley section once grew millions of tall American chestnuts, until that species was devastated by disease; now they are covered largely in northern red oak and chestnut oak. On their flanks can be found lush coves with hemlock and mixed hardwoods, while steep outcrops of shale support shale barrens with their desert-like conditions and specialized plants. Limestone valleys with fertile soils were often cleared for pasture and crops, but forests and woodlands with calcium-loving plants like chinquapin oak and redcedar still persist in some spots. Montane streams are lined with tuliptree and white pine, while other, rarer wetlands like pitch pine bogs and Shenandoah sinkhole ponds can also be found.
The region’s high peaks, especially those over 4,000 feet, serve as “sky islands” harboring isolated animal populations—and have given refuge to species retreating northward after the ice ages. Some of these species, like hermit thrush, ruffed grouse, and red squirrel, can be found through the Appalachians down to the Smokies; others, like mourning warbler and snowshoe hare, reach their southern limit in the Alleghenies. Among other birds characteristic of the highlands are cerulean and Blackburnian warblers, rose-breasted grosbeak, and blue-headed vireo. In recent years, sightings of once-extirpated northern mammals like porcupine and fisher have been on the increase. Salamander diversity reaches its global peak in the central and southern Appalachians, with our region hosting several species that are endemic to just a few mountains.
Early accounts suggest that much of the Piedmont was once covered by a mosaic of woodlands and grasslands maintained by Indigenous fire. This ecosystem had a different composition as well as structure from today’s, with keystone animals like bison and elk, more fire-adapted plants like shortleaf pine, and an herbaceous flora related to that of the midwestern prairies. Only tiny traces of this ecosystem now remain in rights-of-way and other clearings. The matrix habitat of the modern Piedmont is a closed forest of white, red, and black oaks with varying amounts of hickory, which exists as fragmented second-growth alongside pastures and suburbs.
Yet while this landscape may at first present as a featureless plain of degraded habitat, a closer look reveals much subtle variety. Very different suites of shrubs and herbs appear beneath the canopy on acidic vs. basic soils. Beech and tuliptree become dominant on moist lower slopes, while chestnut oak and mountain laurel crown the isolated ridges called monadnocks. Relict hemlock and whitecedar cling to north-facing bluffs; clay hardpan soils lurch from droughty to soggy, supporting a growth of stunted post oak or willow oak. Scattered outcrops of distinctive rock harbor more unusual communities, like the granite flatrocks of Powhatan County, the mafic barrens of the Ragged Mountains, and the ultramafic woodlands of the soapstone belt. Meanwhile, floodplain forests of silver maple, boxelder, sycamore, and birch line the larger streams.
Birds that typify the Piedmont include summer tanager, blue grosbeak, and prairie warbler. For early explorers, much of this area was forbidding wilderness prowled by red wolf and eastern cougar. The elimination of these big carnivores helped white-tailed deer populations to explode, as well as clearing space for opportunistic mesopredators like fox and raccoon.
Today, much of Jamesland’s coastal plain uplands in the Tidewater province are covered by forests of beech and holly (although in ravines that cut into the shell-rich deposits underneath, calcium-lovers like chinquapin oak and southern sugar maple can thrive). Historically, the Powhatans’ use of fire would have produced a very different landscape. South of the James in particular, savannas of the fire-dependent longleaf pine would have been widespread; these are now all but vanished from the Mid-Atlantic, although restoration efforts are underway in places like the James River NWR.
But its wetlands are what truly define this province. Backswamps of baldcypress and tupelo and bottomlands of overcup and laurel oak line the major rivers and cover the Great Dismal Swamp. Seasonally flooded sinkhole ponds host rare herbs, salamanders, and turtles. Tidal freshwater marshes with wild rice, cattail, and pickerelweed flourish along the lower Chickahominy and other streams, grading into brackish marshes downriver where cordgrass comes to dominate. Floating beds of pond-lily and underwater beds of eelgrass can also be found.
Long suffering from pollution and other impacts, many wildlife populations are now on the rebound—from the Atlantic sturgeon that can once again be seen breaching in the James, to the hundreds of bald eagle pairs that have returned to nest along the river, to the many black bears in the now-federally-protected Dismal Swamp. That swamp also boasts several endemic species or subspecies of small mammal and insect. Waterbirds of all kinds make for excellent birding here, especially at heron and egret rookeries, the shorebird mecca of Craney Island (with black-necked stilts and American avocets), and the gull, tern, and skimmer colonies of Hampton Roads. Songbirds like prothonotary and Swainson’s warblers also extend into our Coastal Plain, lending it a Deep South flavor.
