♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Hello, I'm Jim Welch.

Welcome to another NatureScene.

Our guide, as always...Rudy Mancke, Curator of Natural History at the South Carolina Museum Commission.

We're 20 minutes from Columbia, yet this area you've brought us to is beautiful!

It's something one can't imagine, being that close to the city.

One thing people aren't aware of is that there are adventures close to home.

This is one example of that.

We're in a sandhills area, believe it or not.

If you listen carefully over your shoulder, you can hear a waterfall.

We're at Peachtree Rock in Lexington County, and we'll explain why it's called Peachtree Rock in a few minutes.

It's very exciting because it's a unique part of the Sandhills, unlike any other place we can take you.

The thing that makes the difference, that makes this almost an oasis in a desert, is the magic of water.

Water always does that.

We've got a stream flowing behind us.

Plants are here that you would expect to find in the mountains or the Piedmont.

Many of us have been to the mountains.

This has all the appearances, with mountain laurel, cliffs.

I want to know why this was created so close to the Midlands.

One neat thing about our state is that it is divided into sections.

The mountains... a very small part.

The Piedmont... a lot of hard rock.

Sixty percent of our state, though, is sandy, Coastal Plain it's called, a rather flat area.

We know from clues, good solid evidence, that the ocean was once all the way up to where the Piedmont begins today, around Columbia and a little above Aiken.

There are some clues here today.

One is that there's a hard layer of material with sea shells in it.

I can show you some of those.

That hard layer causes the water coming down here to drop a distance and create waterfalls.

This is an abundance of mountain laurel.

Is that because of waterfalls and humidity?

The moisture... right.

Mountain laurel, even though it's called "mountain" laurel, is found throughout the state of South Carolina.

It follows rivers where there's moisture in the air all the time.

We can see those evergreen leaves.

Look at it flowering down there.

Beautiful , very typical flowers.

You don't have to go to the mountains to see it.

It is found on the lower part of the state.

Why don't we walk on down.

We were talking about the rocks that make this waterfall.

This is one area where they outcrop a bit.

See this?

What do those things look like to you?

Some kind of shell.

These are sea shells eroding out of the bank.

The erosion taking place is loosening those shells.

They erode down the bank, and that tells us the ocean was once here.

The rock behind us is too hard for us to chip them out.

Nature erodes them away very nicely.

It becomes more than an estimate that the ocean used to be here.

It's hard evidence!

Some of this is extremely hard evidence.

The ocean was in and out a number of times and laid down these rocks.

Some have changed a great deal.

They've become hardened, and you see them outcropping here.

This is not something you expect in the Sandhills.

Let's look at this plant while we're moving to the waterfall.

You know that tree?

No, I honestly don't!

This is called tuliptree, or yellow poplar.

It's in the magnolia family.

The leaf, if you use your imagination, resembles a tulip flower.

The flowers on this tree look a little like tulip flowers, so tuliptree is a common name.

Look at the little caterpillar!

We'll probably see a lot of caterpillars.

A lot of eggs have been laid and hatched.

Those caterpillars take energy from the leaf.

Where does that leaf get energy?

The sun...isn't that unbelievable?!

We, as animals, are always taking energy from either other animals or from plants.

Rudy, this larger tree has leaves the same shape.

Remember we said the flowers on tuliptrees resembled tulips?

See those flowers up there?

Right on the tips of the branches.

It's really an interesting flower.

It is in the magnolia family, and the flower does resemble the magnolia.

It's got a little more color there, the orange at the base of the flower.

Common throughout the state of South Carolina.

Be careful getting down the outcrop of rock.

This is a beautiful place!

It is pretty, but when you come to steep places, be aware that you can hurt yourself!

I've had people slip on that area there.

[water splashing] This is something I've seen a lot... it's so refreshing every time!

This is a special place, and in South Carolina we're preserving areas of the environment.

This is one area that the Nature Conservancy is working strongly to protect, and I'm glad to see it.

Look at that waterfall!

It's nature, but it's unnatural here in the Midlands of South Carolina... you don't see many waterfalls.

It's here because you've got a very hard cap of rock with fossils in it that we looked at earlier.

That doesn't erode away nearly as rapidly as the sandy stuff underneath it.

The water comes over, curls back in, erodes away from the sand, and eventually digs a deep hole, forming a waterfall.

It's unique and probably one of the few places around the Midlands like this.

It's one of the rarities in the Sandhills.

Usually, if you're going to look for waterfalls, you go, at least, up to the fall line, the dividing line between the Piedmont and the mountains-- I mean, the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain.

Streams coming off the hard rock can erode away the soft sands on the Coastal Plain forming a line of waterfalls, so the name fall line.

This is below the fall line.

It's because of these extra-hard rocks filled with fossils.

Let's look underneath a minute because this is a great place for an animal to spend a little time.

[water splashing] (Rudy) See the little rat snake?

I see him!

Let's sneak in before he gets panicky and get him.

[water splashing] Look at that little guy!

Rudy, that's incredible!

This is one animal that people get afraid of.

This is one of the young rat snakes, probably hatched out of an egg last year.

You can see how distinctly round those pupils are, which tells us it's a nonpoisonous snake.

Look at him opening his mouth!

He'll eventually be a blackish green in color and get solid instead of these blotch colors.

For the first couple of years, he's this color.

Coming to the waterfall to get a drink.

He's beautiful, but at times he will flatten his head.

You can't blame people for being apprehensive.

When you see a snake and you don't know what kind it is, treat it like it's poisonous.

That means, "Leave it alone!"

Don't kill it... that's where it lives.

Leave the snake alone!

This young rat snake is nice... strong squeezer, a constrictor.

It's nice to see one out in the woods.

One interesting thing you can do-- let me show you on this tree.

These rat snakes are great climbers.

Oftentimes on a tree like this you can simply put the snake down... let him get a grip first without him gripping me.

He can go up or down the tree by pushing scales on his belly into grooves on the bark.

Are they climbers naturally?

Fabulous climbers!

When they get bigger-- let me pull him back-- they eat mainly rats and mice and squirrels and such, so climbing up the side of the tree becomes important.

It's important to point out that, in visiting a location as pretty as this, you don't have to be afraid to die from snake bite.

Last year, no one in South Carolina died from snake bite.

Snakes are no great problem... accidental death is a much greater problem.

These are fairly quiet fellows.

We can put him back where he was and let him crawl away.

We don't tamper too much.

We look and let them go.

That's the best way to treat creatures.

Let's put him back over here.

[water splashing] Look at that little guy!

He's happy to be back.

See the way he flows along?

Almost like flowing water, just moving along, walking on his ribs... fabulous animal!

That snake is one of the many nonpoisonous varieties we have.

That's good to point out.

In South Carolina, the majority of species are nonpoisonous.

Is it possible he came out of one of these holes?

Yeah...lots of things have drilled in here.

These become homes for a variety of animals.

You see crane flies dancing.

I'm sure the snake can live here.

He feeds, when he's young, on small toads and frogs.

A good place for a frog.

What kinds of rock are involved in this structure?

Most of these are sandstones.

Made out of sand that was deposited when the ocean was up here way back in time.

Let's go back and touch that waterfall.

I like to get a little cold water on my hand.

[water splashing] (Jim) Beautiful sight!

Doesn't that feel great on a hot day?!

If you can't be here doing this, watching NatureScene is the next best thing!

There's nothing like a waterfall in a hot place!

Imagine what early people who lived here thought!

It seems so pure and fresh.

Let's head this way and see what else we can find.

Beautiful!

[water splashing] [water splashing] We've been seeing a lot of damselflies like that one on the bush over there.

One interesting thing about places with a lot of water is you expect to see dragonflies and damselflies.

We need to try to get that one.

There's another one that's landed.

I got both of them!

Let's talk about the difference between a dragonfly and a damselfly.

We're going to be careful.

If you hold the net, I can reach in and capture one of these things without hurting it.

I don't want to cause any problems.

You will not believe... look at the metallic reflections on that animal's body!

See the green metallic color?

Beautiful color!

Notice how delicate this animal is, like a "damsel," supposedly, so the name damselfly.

The dragonfly is much more bulky.

One difference is, when they sit on your finger, damselflies hold their wings together like this.

The dragonfly separates them and lets them lie flat by his side.

This is a black-winged damselfly.

The white tips on the wings tell us it's female.

Let's try to see the sex on this one.

The male should have solid black wings.

I think that's what this...yeah!

Is she alright?

Yeah.

Notice the bluish- green reflections... that's a male, solid black on the wing.

These are like dragonflies in that they are predators.

They feed on small insects, midge flies, mosquitoes, and other things, so they're really very helpful.

The male doesn't have the white tip... the male also seems bluer.

There's a number of varieties of these black-winged damselflies.

They do vary, but this is a male.

The female was ready to go.

This guy's going to sit... there he goes!

No danger to little children?

No danger...they're not stinging animals.

They're our friends because they eat lots of insects that bother us.

Let's see Peachtree Rock for a minute.

Where the site gets its name.

♪ Get a leaf off this maple tree.

We're walking by a lot of plant known as maple-leaf viburnum.

When we get to some with flowers on-- here's one with flowers.

We need to talk about this plant.

Viburnum flowers are in groups... these are about ready to open.

See the leaf on the Viburnum?

Very much like a maple.

This is red maple leaf in my hand... you can see a neat resemblance.

This is the only Viburnum with a leaf like this, so the common name maple-leaf viburnum.

Not growing out in much of Richland County?

In this area of the state on the Coastal Plain, you don't expect this except in cool, moist places.

In the mountains and the Piedmont, it's much more common.

You can see the flowers really distinctively here.

Beautiful little flowers, just opening up.

These are just freshly opened.

Insects are going to come to them.

I even see a spider or two waiting to grab the insects that come.

[no dialogue] I think you can understand why this might be called Peachtree Rock.

There are a couple of stories about how it got its name.

It is a bit of carving done mainly by nature.

Humans have come and scribbled their names, but nature has done most of the work.

It's the shape of a peach tree, if you use your imagination.

Another story says there used to be a peach tree on this rock.

Some people can recall coming down and picking peaches.

Whatever the derivation of the name, it is a really neat outcrop of rock!

Prominent point out here.

It's an unusual, large formation.

(Rudy) What's happening is that there's a cap of hard rock that we saw at the waterfall... the same layer.

It's so hard that it keeps water, which comes from the top, from dissolving or washing away some of this other material.

This is soft!

Look at that... that's just sand!

Like the sand that is mined in this area of South Carolina and all over the southeast along the fall line.

This is the sand that they mine.

It's very white, fine-grained sand.

This is very easily worked.

Nature is working away a little... humans are speeding it up.

It's still standing because that hard cap keeps a lot of water from getting to it.

Let's walk around the other side.

This is worth coming to see!

(Rudy) There aren't many places like this.

This place really gives you a feeling like the Wild West!

It's hard to believe a rock of this size in this location.

It's gigantic... about twice our height, or a little more!

It's a massive rock!!

The carving away makes one worry... is it going to fall over?

Oh, yeah... slowly eroding.

Nature takes things slowly, usually, wearing away things, but with humans coming and digging with axes, carving their names, that speeds it up.

This is an area we ought to protect.

You can see the layering and get a feeling for a bay by an ocean back in time, when this stuff was coming from the Piedmont, being dumped directly into the ocean.

You can still see, just barely, plants growing on the top in a little bit of soil.

Very exciting place!

Neat to stand and look under this edge and think about that heavy cap and this flimsy sand that comes off in my hand holding all of that up.

Another place is as neat as this and it's totally different, about 200 yards from here.

Let's take a look at that.

♪ [birds chirping] Different world here, isn't it?

Entirely different.

It was cool by the waterfall, and not far, a few hundred yards, it's almost an intense heat!

You can guess there are going to be different plants.

Different habitat... different plants.

Longleaf pines, like the one we walked under.

Flowers like this lupine, one of the pea family.

You can see that the flowers look like regular pea flowers.

Look at the bee fly coming to the flower!

This thing flowers this time of year.

A spring flower, but you find them in open sandy areas where the temperatures are high!

Two other really neat plants, shrubby plants.

This looks like something in people's front yards.

Like a compacta shrub.

Or a boxwood in the front yard.

It's called sand myrtle.

Earlier this year it had beautiful, white flowers.

We're a little past time.

A typical Sandhills plant, but it's also found in the mountains.

This one can put up with a variety of habitats.

This is one of my favorites.

Sadly, it's in trouble.

It comes into the Sandhills area of South Carolina and gets no further north than that.

It's called rosemary.

See the tiny leaves, or needles?

What do you think those tiny leaves do for this plant as far as water is concerned?

They help trap water?

They help hold water.

The sun tries to draw water out.

One way to keep that from coming out is to have skinnier leaves.

If you have flat leaves, turn the leaves on their sides to the sun.

Not as much water escapes.

Water is extremely important!

People bring four-wheel drive vehicles in and run over these plants.

They don't come back well when damaged.

They are typical of sandhills.

These are three nice plants.

But the sand was over there too.

The difference, really, is water.

Lots of it there... very little here.

One other area will really get you.

We need to turn around and go up this road.

♪ We've gotten into a hotter place than we were a moment before.

It's amazing how anything grows in sand like this.

Turkey oaks are doing fine.

Their leaves, instead of being flat, absorbing sunlight, are turned vertical to the sun so they won't lose too much water.

A lot of lichens are on the ground out here.

This is a little more of the rosemary coming up here... a Sandhills plant.

There's one other one that we've been seeing.

I'm looking for some with good flowers.

This thing is called sandwort.

How does a flower grow in sand like this?

There's very little to live on.

The energy to survive comes from the sun, so there's plenty of that.

The challenge is like the challenge down the hill... don't lose too much water!

How do you do that?

Turn your leaves a different way.

You have a skinny leaf.

Look at the leaves on this plant...very, very skinny, down at the base, low to the ground where the temperature is cooler than it is above the ground a foot or so.

Wind, especially on a windy day, cuts down on the temperature.

Small leaves cut down on the amount of water lost.

You cannot lose a lot of water or you die.

Any plant in an area like this that loses water is going to be wiped out.

This will be here annually?

This is going to be here annually...year after year.

Look at that beautiful flower, even in this heat!

Nature has a way of surprising us.

She can fill open spaces, no matter how ugly and horrible the spaces are, from a rock outcrop to a deep ocean to a sandy area.

Take a moment to appreciate the beauty.

You can find exciting things everywhere you go.

Let's walk a little further up this way.

[no dialogue] A hill of sand, Rudy.

It's hot out there on that sand!

Except for the breeze.

It couldn't get much hotter.

It does in the summertime.

It's even hotter than this!

Do you know what this is, one of the shrubs?

It's one of the blueberries called sparkleberry.

Common in this area of the state.

It can live in wet areas and sandy upland areas.

The fruit's not quite as good as most blueberries, but it is edible.

We were saying turkey oaks live here pretty well under longleaf pines... this is turkey oak.

See the way those leaves are held up so the narrow side is in direct sunlight?

That allows it to get enough sunlight to make food but not so much that it causes a lot of evaporation of water.

That's one way you get by out here in this rather harsh environment.

I'd hate to live here all my life!

Here's something else we need to look at.

Let's stop and take a peek at this.

This stuff looks like a moss.

It's not a true moss... it's one of the club mosses.

We find them, oddly enough, on rock outcrops in the mountains and the Piedmont.

They also are down here in the Sandhills.

They don't get high off the ground.

Primitive plants have been around for a long time and adjust well to these sandy areas.

When it's wet, they pick up moisture rapidly.

If you're living in a sandy area and it rains, you get every drop you can.

Get it and have some way of storing it, keeping it inside rather than letting it get away.

Another plant that does the same thing is this.

Look at this little, teeny thing!

Skinny little thing with white flowers on it.

This is called, usually, wire plant.

It's very common and wiry here in the Sandhills.

A very, very tiny flower, one of the flowering plants.

You don't see a lot of leaves and a lot of exposed surface to lose water... very, very narrow plant.

You'll miss it if you don't look close.

That's true on a lot of these, especially with a white, sandy background.

Looks like a dark line in the sand.

We're not only standing on sand... we're on rock that we want to look at, especially this large piece.

Let's take a look.

Not only is this as heavy as iron but it's red, like iron that's rusted.

Basically what this rock is, is iron oxide, rusted iron that holds together little pebbles-- turn it over, Jim-- and even some big pebbles.

These have eroded from the Piedmont, been dumped in an ocean.

The natural cement of iron oxide glued them together to form a rock called a conglomerate because it is a conglomeration of pebbles that are glued together naturally.

Common on the Sandhills of South Carolina and other southeastern states.

Size is deceiving... it's quite heavy!

The upper part of the Coastal Plain is where you find that.

It's been a day of contrasts.

From the beautiful coolness of the waterfall and Peachtree Rock and the beautiful vegetation, here to the almost desertlike atmosphere.

We've seen plants change... a nice lesson to learn.

Nature fills spaces very well and surprises you sometimes.

These plants couldn't do well down there.

Plants in the wet place couldn't do well here.

They're so close to each other.

That's another part of the excitement.

I'm glad it's protected!

I encourage people, no matter where they live, to see these things for yourself.

Excitement around home is sometimes greater than on the other side of the world.

Thank you for being with us.

Join us again next time for NatureScene.

Let's go down this way for a minute.

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