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Find out why Cedar Glades are disappearing...

Cedar Glades – In Your Own Backyard

As you walk through a red-cedar woodland in middle Tennessee, you may enter an open, rocky area with few large trees or shrubs.  This is a cedar glade.  In Tennessee, cedar glades are formed when the underlying limestone comes close to the surface, resulting in a shallow layer of soil where few large plants can grow.  But the area is not bare.  Small flowering plants, grasses, lichens and the occasional small tree will grow in the cracks and crevices in the limestone, where soil has accumulated.  In fact, many rare and endangered plants, such as the Tennessee coneflower, are only found in these limestone cedar glades.

What does “cedar glade” really mean?

The term “cedar glade” can be confusing since “glades” implies no (or few) trees.  Elsie Quarterman, in her 1989 report in the Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science (Structure and Dynamics of the Limestone Cedar Glade communities in Tennessee), clarifies the terminology quite well:

When cedar glades are mentioned, the question of definition invariably arises…. The forests of red cedar that are associated with glades are part of the total ecosystem, but cedar forests, per se, are not glades.  Glades are the open areas of rock, gravel, and / or shallow soil that remain bare or are occupied by low-growing herbaceous plant communities.  It has become customary, and is considered more accurate, to designate glades wherever they may occur by their substrates, as sandstone glade, dolomite glade, limestone glade, etc. …. However, the use of the term “cedar glade” is too firmly entrenched in the literature to propose to change it.  The best compromise appears to be “limestone cedar glade.”  The term “cedar barren” is also sometimes applied to openings in cedar forests, and is often used interchangeably with “cedar glades”

So, now you are familiar with the definition of a cedar glade.  What about the plants and animals that inhabit them?  Well, over 500 plants have been recorded to live in cedar glades throughout the southeastern United States.  That’s a few too many to mention here.  However, there are some common species which often vary depending on the depth of the soil, as can be seen in this table recreated from  Wildflowers of the Central South, by Thomas E. Hemmerly (1990).

PLANT ZONATION IN CEDAR GLADES

There are four plant species that are found only in Tennessee cedar glades:

• Pyne’s Ground Plum (only in Rutherford County)
• Tennessee Coneflower (Wilson, Davidson and Rutherford County)
• Glade Scorpion-weed (mostly throughout the Central Basin)
• Nashville Mustard (mostly throughout the Central Basin)

What about the animals?  Well, not as much research has been done.  One paper in particular, The herpetofauna of the Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Forest, and Natural Area, does discuss 16 amphibians and 19 reptiles surveyed over a period of years.  What did they find?

• Marbled Salamander

• Spotted Salamander

• Red Spotted Newt

• Zigzag Salamander

• Green Salamander

• Cave Salamander

• American Toad

• Fowler’s Toad

• Cricket Frog

• Upland Chorus Frog

• Gray Tree Frog

• Eastern Narrow-Mouthed Toad

• Bullfrog

• Green Frog

• Pickerel Frog

• Southern Leopard Frog

• Eastern Box Turtle

• Red-eared Turtle

• Northern Fence Lizard

• Five-lined Skink

• Southeastern Five-lined Skink

• Broad-headed Skink

• Six-lined Racerunner

• Eastern Garter Snake

• Eastern Hognose Snake

• Northern Ringneck Snake

• Midwest Worm Snake

• Norhtern Black Racer

• Black Rat Snake

• Black Kingsnake

• Eastern Milk Snake

• Red Milk Snake

• Northern Scarlet Snake

• Southeastern Crowned Snake

• Timber Rattlesnake

To learn more about these animals and to see pictures, check out the following websites: 

Tennessee Amphibian Monitoring Program:  http://www.state.tn.us/twra/tamp.html

Snakes of Tennessee:  http://frogsandsnakes.homestead.com/snakes.html

So, where can you find these amazing cedar glades?  Right here in your own backyard.  Most people don’t realize that Middle Tennessee has the most and best preserved cedar glades in the entire world.  There are at least 9 State Natural Areas and one National Park in Tennessee that contain (and protect) cedar glades.

Flat Rock Cedar Glades and Barrens Preserve
Just 6 miles outside Murfreesboro, Flat Rock Cedar Glade Preserve consists of over 1000 acres of forest habitat that is sprinkled with many cedar glades.  Many endangered plant species inhabit this preserve, including Pyne’s ground plum, the Purple prairie clover and the Sunny Bell Lily.  Flat Rock preserve is open to the public and may be visited during any time of year.

Cedars of Lebanon
Over 900 acres of Cedars of Lebanon can be explored by the general public.  An additional 8,100 acres are preserved as a natural area, where many rare and endangered plant species can be found. http://www.state.tn.us/environment/parks/cedars/

Stones River National Battlefield
Stones River, while often used as a recreational facility, is also home to the endemic (and endangered) Tennessee Purple Coneflower.  Several seeds were planted in the early 1970’s as one of many measures to reduce the threat of extinction.  This population is now thriving, as the area is protected from development and trash dumping. http://www.nps.gov/stri/

Others include Couchville Cedar Glade, Elsie Quarterman Cedar Glade, Mount View Glade, Sneed Road Cedar Glade, Sunnybell Cedar Glade, Vesta Cedar Glade, Vine Cedar glade.

Want to know even more??  Several papers and books have been published about cedar glades and the plants and animals that inhabit them.  Below is a brief synopsis of some of these.  If you would like more information on any of these reports, send us an email at info@discoverycenteronline.org

Roger C. Anderson, James S. Fralish, and Jerry M. Baskin, eds. Savannas, Barrens, and rock Outcrop Plant Communities of North America.  1999 Cambridge University Press.

This book includes a section on Cedar Glades of the Southeastern United States by Jerry and Carol Baskin and provides a comprehensive review describing cedar glades.  Excerpts provided below:

Definition of cedar glades: 
Open areas of rock pavement, gravel, flagstone, and/or shallow soil in which occur natural, long-persisting plant communities dominated by herbaceous angiosperms and/or cryptogams.  They may, or may not, be surrounded by forest.  Cedar glades may support low densities of woody plants, which become established in deep soil-filled cracks in the bedrock.

Geology of cedar glades:  
Central Basin bedrock is composed of Middle Ordovician Ridley and Lebanon limestones of the Stones River Group.

Climate: 
The macroclimate of the cedar glades region of the southeastern United States is [characterized by rain throughout the year with mild winters and warm summers].  However, microclimate and soil moisture conditions of cedar glades are harsher for plant growth than the general meteorological data suggests.  For example, soil moisture is more extreme for the shallow glade soils than for the deeper soils of the region. Soils often are saturated with water from late autumn to early spring, whereas in summer and early autumn they sometimes are below the permanent wilting point.  Soil surface temperatures may [also] be considerably higher than those recorded at nearby weather stations.

Flora: 
Four hundred and forty-four of these 541 [plants found in the cedar glades of the southeastern United States] are indigenous to the cedar glade region.  Nineteen of the taxa are endemic to cedar glades, and two are nearly endemic.  The physiographic region with the largest cedar glade flora is the Central Basin of Tennessee (328 native, 80 nonnative). 

Baskin J.M., Elsie Quarterman and Carole Caudle.  1968.  Preliminary Check-List of the Herbaceous Vascular Plants of Cedar Glades. Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science  43: 65-71.

• “This list is restricted to herbaceous vascular plants occurring primarily or entirely in open cedar glades.  No effort was made to collect thoroughly along major roadsides, so the weedy group of species may seem incomplete; the list, however, is intended primarily to reflect the unique and distinctive components of the open glade flora.”
• [The majority of the paper is a very thorough check-list of the plant species]  

Baskin, C.C. and Jerry M. 1975.  Additions to the Herbaceous Flora of the Middle Tennessee Cedar Glades.  Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science 50: 25-26.

This is a listing of 64 additional species collected from the Middle Tennessee cedar glades (that were not included 1968 preliminary check-list).  The list is composed mainly of weedy species that invaded disturbed cedar glades.

Elsie Quarterman.  1989.  Structure and Dynamics of the Limestone Cedar Glade communities in Tennessee.  Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science 64: 155-158.

Excerpts:

Abstract:  
This report presents brief descriptions of the habitat and of the various plant communities of Tennessee limestone cedar glades.  Habitat factors that appear to be of greatest importance are (1) depth of soil (2) seasonal distribution of precipitation (3) high irradiance, and (4) extremes of temperature.

General: 
One may speak of a glade complex, or ecosystem, as consisting of open gravelly / grassy true glades surrounded by or winding between shrub thickets and glade woods… Of the 26 endemic plant taxa occurring on limestone glades east of the Mississippi River listed by Basking and Baskin (1986), 58.98% are known to occur in the following three Middle Tennessee counties: Davidson, Rutherford and Wilson.

Habitat Factors:
Biotic factors known to be important in glades include the timing of all aspects of life cycle phenomena to fit the seasonal features of the habitat and inter- and intra-specific root and / or shoot competition.

Communities:
[Xeric communities occur on soil from 0-5 cm depth].  In the shallow, accumulating soil and gravel, Leavenworthia spp. dominate the early spring communities and Minuartia patula and Sedum pulchellum  the late spring communities.  Within this zone, usually where cracks or potholes allow deeper soil to develop, such perennials as Pediomelum subacaule and Dalea gattingeri are prominent members of the community.

O. Ray Jordan.  The herpetofauna of the Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Forest, and Natural Area

This article, along with many others, can be found in the October 1986 issue of the Association of Southeastern Biologists Bulletin (Volume 33, Number 4).

Jeffrey L Walck, Thomas E. Hemmerly, and Siti N. Hidayati. 2002.  The Endangered Tennessee Purple Coneflower, Echinacea tennesseensis (Asteraceae): Its Ecology and Conservation.  Native Plants Journal 3: 54-64.www.nativeplantnetwork.org - A very thorough and informative article!

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