Georgia Gardening: Wild Hibiscus militaris Near Fitzgerald Georgia, 1 by Michael_Ronayne

Michael_Ronayne wrote:
I located a free source of out-of-copyright high resolution topographic maps including Georgia’s from the 1920’s provided by the Libre Map Project, which is affiliated with Archive.org.

http://libremap.org/data/state/georgia/drg/ List of all Georgia Topo Maps.
http://libremap.org/data/state/georgia/ Search Georgia Topo Map Locations.

Taylor Road is contained in the topographic maps of Fitzgerald West and Irwinville. When searching for Georgia maps, be sure to specify a location or county. The download of all the place names in Georgia takes a long time.

I edited and concatenated the two sections of Taylor Road into a single composite map which is attached to this post. Water flows across Taylor Road from south to north at three locations along the road. From west to east the first watercourse is at the intersection of Taylor Road and Jeff Davis Park Road which you can see in the Google Street View from Jeff Davis Park Road. The second watercourse is approximately 450 feet from the western end of Taylor Road. The third watercourse is near the midpoint of Taylor Road which is referenced in my first post and north of two farm-ponds which dam the third watercourse just to the south of the road.

All three watercourses are likely places to find Hibiscus and other water loving plants but from the topographic map the second watercourse appears to have the largest and most reliable source of water to the south and that would be my first pick. In the Google Earth and Google Map views, you can see the tree line exactly following the second watercourse shown in the topographic map.

Another good place to look would be Adams Road which is the next road to the south of Taylor Road and visible of the attached topographic map. Three watercourses also cross Adams Road and connect to two of the watercourses crossing Taylor Road.

In New Jersey Hibiscus moscheutos seeds float and are dispersed by water. I don’t know if the seeds of Hibiscus militaris float but if they do, searching along the watercourse on which the Hibiscus are found, is an excellent way to find more Hibiscus. This search technique should work for any water loving plant.

If anyone can locate the Hibiscus militaris we will see how good my theory is!

Mike

This message was edited Oct 18, 2011 8:29 AM