Coker University's Kalmia Gardens is home to an unusual ecosystem featuring glacial relicts

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Recently, our team went to Hartsville and filmed at Kalmia Gardens. Director Dan Hill took us down the slope on that property which drops sixty feet to Black Creek. Several plants there are glacial relicts – they moved down ahead of the glaciers during the Pleistocene era. In North America, the last glaciers came as far south as Pennsylvania and plants moved ahead of them as the climate changed, too. As the glaciers retreated, many northern plants couldn’t live in the warmer climate that returned. But at Kalmia Gardens, a northern type mountain laurel as well as galax and a specific witch hazel have persisted in that unusual ecosystem. There is a sturdy but long set of steps that takes you from the top of the garden to Black Creek and then lateral paths so you can walk in these woods.