Okefenokee Gold Mine

The Okefenokee continues to make the news as conservationists sound the alarm against a proposal from Twin Pines Minerals to mine thousands of acres alongside the National Wildlife Refuge. This mining operation isn’t a modern day gold rush, but a search for titanium dioxide. Even so, there is Gold in the Okefenokee! A different sort of gold…

Splashes of yellow dot the Okefenokee landscape as wildflowers of the Bidens genus bloom in the spring and summer. I have seen them growing on the prairies, in shallow waters alongside Spatterdock, and in tussocks upon old stumps in the middle of the larger lakes. They are commonly called Beggars Ticks, Bur Marigolds and Tickseed Sunflowers.  They are a sun-loving wildflower and generally found in moist soils such as marshes, wet meadows and roadside ditches.

The Okefenokee is a gold mine of natural beauty; a national treasure. These beautiful wildflowers, along with other plant and animal species, are all the more reason to protect our wondeful Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge!

iNaturalist observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/46220378