Malaprop’s is pleased to partner with UNC Press and the North Carolina Arboretum to present this event. Introductions will be provided by UNC Press Advancement Council member Kirk Brown.
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The American South is famous for its astonishingly rich biodiversity. In this book, Georgann Eubanks takes a wondrous trek from Alabama to North Carolina to search out native plants that are endangered and wavering on the edge of erasure. Even as she reveals the intricate beauty and biology of the South’s plant life, she also shows how local development and global climate change are threatening many species, some of which have been graduated to the federal list of endangered species.
Why should we care, Eubanks asks, about North Carolina’s Yadkin River goldenrod, found only in one place on earth? Or the Alabama canebrake pitcher plant, a carnivorous marvel being decimated by criminal poaching and a booming black market? These plants, she argues, are important not only to the natural environment but also to southern identity, and she finds her inspiration in talking with the heroes–the botanists, advocates, and conservationists young and old–on a quest to save these green gifts of the South for future generations. These passionate plant lovers caution all of us not to take for granted the sensitive ecosystems that contribute to the region’s long-standing appeal, beauty, and character.
Georgann Eubanks is a writer and Emmy-winning documentarian. Her most recent books are The Month of Their Ripening: North Carolina Heritage Foods through the Year and Saving the Wild South:The Fight for Native Plants on the Brink of Extinction.
Longtime conservationist Jeff Michael has served as director of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and Wildacres Leadership Initiative, and as executive director of the Land Trust for Central North Carolina (now Three Rivers Land Trust) and the Yadkin-Pee Dee Lakes Project (now Central Park NC). He has also served on the boards of Morrow Mountain State Park Advisory Committee and Preservation North Carolina, among others. He has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and master’s in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds a J.D. from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law.