Displaying items by tag: cedar barren
Saving barrens full of life
Tennessee coneflower is seen in Couchville cedar glade, a prime example of cedar glade habitat that is a target of preservationists — such as the land acquired recently in Rutherford County by TennGreen Land Conservancy. The Couchville property is managed by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. It is similar in nature to the TennGreen property in Rutherford County, and is part of a nexus of such glades around the Cumberland Plateau. According to TDEC: “Couchville supports one of the largest known and best quality populations of the Tennessee coneflower (Echinacea tennesseensis), which was delisted as a federally endangered species in September 2011. Couchville also provides one of the finest examples of a glade-barrens complex and protects many rare plant species. The glades are distributed where limestone outcropping and shallow soils limit growth of perennial plants and support annual species like leavenworthia, sporobolus, and sedum. The barrens species, that also includes Tennessee coneflower, occur where soils increase and grasses like little bluestem and side oats grama become dominant. The glades and barrens interface forming a complex.” Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation
Cedar glade habitat protected in fast-growing Tennessee county
MURFREESBORO — To close out 2024, TennGreen Land Conservancy and Allen Patton protected 50 acres of globally unique cedar glade habitat in Middle Tennessee’s Rutherford County with a conservation easement.
Called Rockdale Cedar Glades and Woodlands, Patton’s land abuts TennGreen’s Lamar Cedar Glades & Woodlands Conservation Easement, increasing this connected corridor of protected land to an expansive 256 acres. Limestone cedar glades and barrens, which are incredibly diverse but under threat from development and pollution, are found on the protected properties. This additional 50-acre easement is also within the Spring Creek HUC 12 Watershed and the Stones River Upper HUC 12 Watershed, marking it as critical habitat.
(Hellbender Press has previously reported on the special nature and importance of cedar barrens, including one located in Oak Ridge, just on the cusp of the Cumberland Plateau, which is better known for its cedar glades).
Cedar gladecress (Leavenworthia stylosa) during a prescribed burn at Couchville State Natural Area; this wildflower is only found in the Central Basin of Tennessee. TDEC
- land conservation in tennessee
- tenngreen land conservancy
- cedar barren
- cedar barrens in tennessee
- cumberland plateau
- allen patton
- rockdale cedar glades and woodlands
- rutherford county land preservation
- leavenworthia stylosa
- grey bat
- myotis grisescens
- phemeranthus calcaricus
- phlox bifida
- echinacea tennesseensis
- astragalus tennesseensis
- tennessee state wildlife action plan
Help control invasive exotic plants Saturday at Oak Ridge cedar barrens
OAK RIDGE — The Oak Ridge Cedar Barren will again be the site of exotic invasive plant removal on Saturday, Nov. 5 as we conduct our fall cleanup, our third and final cleanup of the year. Located next to Jefferson Middle School in Oak Ridge, the Barren is a joint project of the City of Oak Ridge, State Natural Areas Division, and Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning. The area is one of just a few cedar barrens in East Tennessee, and is subject to invasion by bushy lespedeza, leatherleaf viburnum, privet, autumn olive, mimosa, Nepal grass, multiflora rose, and woody plants that threaten the system’s prairie grasses. Our efforts help to eliminate invasives and other shade-producing plants that prevent the prairie grasses from getting needed sunlight.
Volunteers should meet in the Jefferson Middle School Parking lot at 9 a.m., with sturdy shoes, loppers, gloves, and water. The work session will conclude at noon with a pizza lunch. For more information, contact Tim Bigelow at 865-607-6781 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Hellbender Press reported in detail on last year’s Cedar Barren spring cleanup.
Being fire: Volunteers help preserve a classic East Tennessee cedar barren
A volunteer removes invasive plants from an Oak Ridge cedar barren as part of a Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning effort to keep the barren in its natural prarie state. Anna Lawrence/Hellbender Press
Volunteers play the part of fire to maintain the native grasses and wildflowers at an Oak Ridge cedar barren
OAK RIDGE — It’s called a barren, but it’s not barren at all. It’s actually a natural Tennessee prairie, full of intricate, interlocking natural parts, from rocks and soil to plants and insects and animals.
There’s lots of life in these small remaining unique collections of grasses and conifers that are typically known, semi-colloquially, as cedar barrens.
Many of these “barrens” have been buried beneath illegal dumping or asphalt, but remnants they are still tucked away here and there, including a small barren in Oak Ridge owned by the city and recognized by the state as a small natural area.
Help control invasive exotic plants at cedar barren
Mar 6 9 a.m.–noon
Spring Cedar Barren Cleanup / Weed Wrangle
Cedar barren next to Jefferson Middle School, Oak Ridge
Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning with City of Oak Ridge and State Natural Areas Division
Hands-on volunteer activity
Cedar Barrens — a habitat characteristic of our ecoregion — have become scarce in East Tennessee. They are reduced or eliminated by economic development and our rare native species specialized to live in them get overwhelmed by invasives.
For more information, contact Tim Bigelow at 865-607-6781 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Specifics subject to prevailing conditions at time of event. COVID-19 precautions will be observed.
Marking points in time: The Hal DeSelm Papers

A life dedicated to the flora of Tennessee
Dr. Hal DeSelm clambered around the crest of Cherokee Bluff in the heat of a late Knoxville summer 22 years ago. The Tennessee River flowed languidly some 500 feet below. Beyond the river stood the campus of the University of Tennessee Agriculture Institute. The towers of the city center rose to the northeast beyond the bridges of the old frontier river town.
DeSelm was not interested in the views of the urban landscape below. He was interested in the native trees, shrubs, herbs and grasses that clung to the ancient cliffside with firm but ultimately ephemeral grips on the craggy soil.
The retired UT professor, a renowned ecologist and botanist who died in 2011, had been sampling the terrestrial flora of Tennessee for decades. The life-long project took on a new urgency in the early 1990s, when he accelerated his data collection in hopes of writing the authoritative guide to the natural vegetation native to the forests, barrens, bogs and prairies of pre-European Tennessee.
Between 1993 and 2002, DeSelm collected 4,184 data points from 3,657 plots across the state. Many of those plots have since been lost to development, highways, and agriculture, or overrun by exotic species, but he assembled an invaluable baseline of the native landscape. Many of the sites he recorded have since been lost to development.
- science
- botany
- botanist
- Tennessee River
- native plant
- native tree
- native herb
- native grass
- native shrub
- Tennessee
- University of Tennessee
- terrestrial flora
- barren
- cedar barren
- ecologist
- Hal DeSelm
- Cherokee Bluff
- University of Tennessee Agricultural Institute
- native landscape
- preEuropean Tennessee
- natural vegetation
- sampling plot
- 1993
- 2002
- exotic species
- invasive species
- Todd Crabtree
- Tennessee State Botanist
- Natural Heritage Program
- conservation
- understory
- canopy
- ground cover
- herbaceous growth
- geology
- bedrock
- soil type
- forest
- conservationist
- database
- collection
- baseline data