Batona Trail - Flora and Fauna

Flora and Fauna

Although the Pine Barrens, as the name suggests, are mainly flat pine forests, there is a large variety of plants and animals along the trail. The pines that are found there include loblolly pine, white pine, pitch pine, shortleaf pines, and Virginia pines. Although the pines dominate the area there are also maple trees, birches, cedars, oaks, magnolia, and sassafras trees along the trail. There are a number of edible plants, such as bearberries, spotted wintergreen, teaberries, huckleberries, bayberries, blackberries, cranberries, blueberries, and strawberries. There is a diverse range of other plants, to include the prickly pear cactus, wildflowers, twenty-eight species of orchids, the pitcher plant, ferns, Atlantic white cedar, and sphagnum moss.

Thirty-nine species of mammals, two hundred and twenty-nine bird species, fifty-nine reptile and amphibian species and ninety-one fish species have been reported in the Pine Barrens. Possums, chipmunks, squirrels, beavers, muskrats, mice, foxes, raccoons, weasels, mink, river otter, and white-tailed deer are some of the more common mammals seen in the Pinelands. Some common amphibians and reptiles are snakes, skinks, newts, salamanders, frogs, toads, and turtles. The Pine Barrens Tree Frog has a population here that is disconnected from other populations in the Carolinas and the Florida Panhandle. The Pine Barrens location makes it the fringe of both northern and southern species, such as the Yellow Fringed Orchid.