Clickable map Longleaf pine forest, Green Swamp Preserve © Mark Godfrey/The Nature Conservancy

In the far southeastern part of North Carolina, Green Swamp and Boiling Spring Lakes is the center of an incredibly rich assembly of plant life. 

Featuring a complex of longleaf pine savannas and limesink ponds bound together by thousands of acres of pocosin (a type of evergreen shrub bog), the area is home to more than 400 vascular plant species and provides habitat for animals such as red-cockaded woodpecker and black bear. 

The life cycle of many plants and animals found here are tied to fire. Longleaf pine trees, for example, need fire to release their seeds and to germinate. The Nature Conservancy actively works to maintain ecosystem health by setting prescribed burns in longleaf and pocosin communities and by replanting longleaf pine trees.