The Francis Marion National Forest, located on the Atlantic coast, has many opene Longleaf Pine forests, where R. atlanticum is found in some places. The recurring fires keep the azaleas fairly short. They form many runners. We visited two of these places near the Wambaw Swamp Wilderness and found a lot of the mostly only 20-30cm long shoots, which had already formed flower buds for the next year. Afterwards we made a short stop northwest of Charleston near the Four Hole Swamp. At a road junction there were some R. canescens to admire.
