Native Plants of the Cumberland Plateau

Stretching across eastern Tennessee from Alabama north into Kentucky, the Cumberland Plateau rises more than 1,000 feet above the Tennessee River Valley to a vast tableland of sandstone and shale dating as far back as 500 million years. Carved over time by flowing water, the plateau today is a labyrinth of rocky ridges and verdant ravines dropping steeply into gorges laced with waterfalls and caves, ferns and rhododendrons, and diverse wildflowers.

Bobby Fulcher, manager of the Cumberland Trail State Park and local folklorist, will share his knowledge of the special ecosystems found on the Cumberland Trail, the state’s only linear park that, when complete will extend over 300 miles across the Cumberland Plateau from the Cumberland Gap to the Tennessee River gorge

The talk is sponsored by the Tennessee Valley Wild Ones, native plant advocates.