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A False Recovery, But North Carolina's Ecoregions are Complete!

June 9th, 2020 by Alex Zorach

Unfortunately, shortly after my last post about recovery from COVID-19, I had a relapse, and my recovery from this turned out to be much slower and more irregular than the first time around. Initially, this relapse was scary and confusing because I had not ready any accounts of people with similar experiences. However, it is now clear that a certain portion of people have illnesses that drag on for weeks or even a few months, with recurring, sometimes bizarre symptoms.

There has now been some media coverage of people with experiences similar to mine, such as this article on people who have COVID-19 symptoms for months in The Guardian, and an article about patients experiencing relapses of COVID-19 symptoms in Vox.

I have still been working on the site off and on, but, as before, have been neglecting the social media presence and blog updates. I am finally feeling mostly better again, and I'm hoping that this time I will be able to get back to my usual level of work without any further setbacks.

I also want to highlight some of the work I did get done over the past couple months.

Some Excitement About North Carolina

Ecoregion articles are now finished for North Carolina and I have begun adding images for many of them. North Carolina is a fascinating state with respect to ecology and plant diversity. It contains the highest-elevation parts of the southern Appalachians, and thus is home to many northerly plant species that reach the southern limits of their range, such as the red spruce (Picea rubens) at the highest elevations, or yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) at slightly lower ones. These are in turn part of forest communities that in many ways resemble more northerly forest types.

Farther east, the state also has vast expanses of swamps, peatlands, flatwoods, and coastal wetlands and barrier islands, each of which supports its own unique plant communities. It is also geologically diverse, and the diversity of terrain and soil types further drives plant diversity.

You can explore the map here:

This clickable map can also be found on the page on North Carolina. We have similar maps for all lower 48 U.S. states, but the articles are only finished for the states in the northeast. Follow the link in the footer to see maps of other states.

We also published a page on beetleweed (Galax urceolata), an herbaceous plant that is most common in the southern Appalachians, that many people may be familiar with due to its widespread use in flower arrangements, a practice that can sometimes threaten wild populations of this plant.