Plants that comprise one of Georgia’s rarest ecosystems were rescued Thursday from a burgeoning construction site that threatened their doom.
    Before crews could lay waste to a pitcher plant bog — a diverse plant ecosystem in decline throughout the Southeast — located in the corner of a recently cleared tract of land on Georgia Highway 67 that will become the Aspen Heights apartment complex, officials representing Georgia Southern University and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources worked a deal with property owners to remove several species of threatened plants.
    Thursday evening, the many species of green, yellow and burgundy plants were given a new home: a bog used for educational display at the newly named Garden of the Coastal Plain at Georgia Southern University — formerly the Georgia Southern Botanical Garden.
    A group of students attending a Plant Evolutionary Ecology class joined garden staff, a representative with the Department of Natural Resources and Dr. Lissa Leege, the director of the Georgia Southern Center for Sustainability, in grabbing shovels and digging in to plant the new species.
    “This bog has been monitored by the Department of Natural Resources since the 1980s and was full of a lot of important species,” said Leege, about the muddy site on Highway 67. “We’re glad to have these plants here now. The garden here at Georgia Southern has a really important role in protecting these unique habitats and unique plants.”
    Georgia’s Coastal Plain bog environments are home to a wide variety of rare and protected plants. They are sites constantly fed by underground springs that keep the ground moist, or “boggy.” Bogs are home to pitcher plants, ladies’ tresses, spider orchids, butterworts and coreopsis.
    Included in the habitat relocated Thursday is one of Georgia’s seven protected pitcher plant species — the yellow fly trap, which lures and devours unsuspecting insects — and several species of plants found in few other places on the planet.
    “We rescued about two dozen types of plants from the bog,” said Tom Patrick, a state botanist with the Department of Natural Resources. “We have found that these pitcher plant bogs harbor many, many species of plants. There is high diversity; probably 300-400 species. A lot of these plants are found only in the Southeast United States.”
    Parker said bog environments are in decline throughout the state, and only a few areas have been designated to protect them.
    Pitcher plant bogs are in decline in the South largely because of herbicide spraying along highways to control grass. The plants also have been hurt by a lack of regular fires in forests and urban development.
    Ecologists are lobbying for protection of the increasingly rare ecosystems for the benefits they provide the environment.
    “Bogs are really important for reducing flooding and purifying water, and are really important to the quality of our water and the water system,” Leege said. “For that reason, we really need to preserve our bogs and maintain that habitat for the future.
    “Only 3 percent of bog habitats are remaining from what was once here,” she said. “There are very few left.”
    Thursday’s relocation ensures that at least one bog ecosystem will have a guaranteed home well into the future.
    Students planted the species in a plot of soil located next to the garden’s biofuel garden near the back of the property, just off of Georgia Avenue.
    The bog, flanked by informational markers, will be used for the educational purposes of students and garden visitors, Leege said.
    Plants will be viewable anytime during the garden’s scheduled hours of operation.
   
    Jeff Harrison may be reached at (912) 489-9454.