Today we walked the Hannah Trail from the parking lot at the Parson Branch Road to Gregory Bald and of course back again (14,8km/9.2M, 650m/2130ft elevation gain and loss). On the treeless summit of Gregory Bald there are countless R. cumberlandense. But the special thing are the hybrids between this species and R. arborescens which appear again and again. However, R. arborescens does not occur naturally here, although both species grow together in the wild at other localities and also hybridize. The guess is that at one time a R. arborescens was planted up there by a farmer. To herd animals, people used to be up there all summer. Whether the parent plant is still there seems uncertain. In one place there is a specimen that looks like R. arborescens. But it has never been checked if it is a hybrid that is just very close to R. arborscens or not.
