Ephemeral by Nature: Exploring the Exceptional with a Tennessee Naturalist

In this captivating collection of twelve essays, naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales examines a variety of flora and fauna that can be described as "ephemeral"-that is, fleeting, short-lived, or transient. Focusing on his native East Tennessee, Bales introduces us to several oddities, including the ghost plant, a wispy vascular plant that resembles a roosters tail and grows mainly in areas devoid of sunlight; the Appalachian panda, an ancestor of today's red panda that wandered the region millions...