I've generally been drawn to landscapes of hilly terrain, like in north Alabama where I grew up, or vast open spaces of the desert where my fondest memories are from family camping trips there when I was a kid.
I've recently become more and more drawn to the depths of the flat south Mississippi wet pine savannas, marshes and bayous. These landscapes, generally seen in passing while speeding down the straight and narrow roads, appear so flat; they seem to lack depth. It's once you pull off the side of the road and walk through the initial growth along the roadside that these landscapes open up.
A few weeks ago some friends and I went exploring through a wet pine savanna that a local ecologist had told us about. Three different types of pitcher plants grow there. That was one of our main reasons for going. The wet pine savannas of this area are generally knee height grasses dotted with pitcher plants, a native sunflower and a few other smaller, unassuming wildflowers. Then above it all are the dark green patches of wax myrtles, swamp bay magnolias and longleaf pine. Each having a distinct smell, wax myrtles smell like lemons, swamp bays smell spicy and sweet and pines don't smell like Pine Sol. Mingled amongst it all are saw palmetto who's colors within the plant change throughout the year.
The day we went through the above savanna a huge storm rolled through that forced us back to truck.
