Rare plants given a new home

GSU, Ga. DNR save and relocate pitcher plant bog

Georgia Southern students Brandon McMaster, 21, of Alpharetta, left, and Teresa Popp, 22, of Belvidere, Ill., team up Thursday to transplant yellow pitcher plants in the bog garden exhibit at the Garden of the Coastal Plain. The garden, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Georgia Southern University Department of Biology worked together to rescue the rare carnivorous plants from a development.

W 083012 PLANT RESCUE 01 — Georgia Southern students Brandon McMaster, 21, of Alpharetta, left, and Teresa Popp, 22, of Belvidere, Ill., team up Thursday to transplant yellow pitcher plants in the bog garden exhibit at the Garden of the Coastal Plain. The garden, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Georgia Southern University Department of Biology worked together to rescue the rare carnivorous plants from a development.

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.

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