Black Ankle, North Carolina - Black Ankle Today - Blackankle Bog Preserve

Blackankle Bog Preserve

The Blackankle Bog Preserve is one of the few remaining Piedmont bogs. The bog is 284 acres (1.15 km2) total and is owned by The Nature Conservancy. The tract of land was purchased in 1991 from the Dassow Property Corporation. Over the next 20 – 25 years, the North Carolina Chapter will continue to restore the preserve to its historic condition by setting prescribed burns and replanting longleaf pine tree seedlings grown from local seed sources. The North Carolina Zoo, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the NC Division of Forest Restoration are actively involved in supporting the Blackankle Bog Preserve and the Nature Conservancy in this restoration effort.

A patch of climbing fern, a large stand of sweetleaf, and the rare large witch-alder grow on the preserve. Birds such as wild turkeys, hairy and pileated woodpeckers, and broad-winged hawks, which are commonly found on large tracts of unbroken woodlands, also inhabit the bog. Toward the streamheads, the vegetation shifts from plant communities that require dry conditions, such as longleaf pines and chestnut oaks woodlands common to the nearby Uwharrie Mountains, to the treeless areas of the bog community. Blackjack and post oaks, and dense huckleberry and blueberry shrubs surround mats and sphagnum moss and patches of habenaria orchids, milkworts, sedges, cinnamon ferns, and trumpet and purple pitcher plants. Downhill from the bog the habitat blends into a dense thicket dominated by alder, sweet bay, sweet pepper brush, Virginia sweet-spire, and the endangered bog spicebrush grows in these areas. It contains scattered longleaf pines, reminders of the trees that were once prevalent in this area on the border between the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont.