Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The park contains some of the highest mountains in eastern North America, including Clingmans Dome, Mount Guyot, and Mount Le Conte. The border between the two states runs northeast to southwest through the center of the park. The Appalachian Trail passes through the center of the park on its route from Georgia to Maine. With 14.1 million visitors in 2021, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States.
The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province. The range is sometimes called the Smoky Mountains and the name is commonly shortened to the Smokies. The Great Smokies are best known as the home of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which protects most of the range. The park was established in 1934, and, with over 11 million visits per year, it is the most visited national park in the United States.
Cherokee is a census-designated place (CDP) in Swain and Jackson counties in Western North Carolina, United States, within the Qualla Boundary land trust. Cherokee is located in the Oconaluftee River Valley around the intersection of U.S. Routes 19 and 441. As of the 2020 census, the CDP had a population of 2,195. It is the capital of the federally recognized Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, one of three recognized Cherokee tribes and the only one in North Carolina.
The Foothills Parkway is a national parkway which traverses the foothills of the northern Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, located in the southeastern United States. The 72.1-mile (114 km) parkway will connect U.S. Route 129 along the Little Tennessee River in the west with Interstate 40 (I-40) along the Pigeon River in the east.
Dothideomycetes is the largest and most diverse class of ascomycete fungi. It comprises 11 orders 90 families, 1,300 genera and over 19,000 known species. Wijayawardene et al. in 2020 added more orders to the class.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is home to over 1,500 different species of flowering plants—more than any other North American National Park, earning it the nickname of the "Wildflower National Park". Every spring in late April, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the site of the week-long annual spring wildflower pilgrimage to celebrate this diversity. The park is also the site of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory to inventory all the living organisms in the park. This article lists some of the Wildflowers of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, current threats and resources for further information.“A group of flowers known as spring ephemerals begins the yearly show. Ephemerals are so named because they appear above ground only in late winter and early spring, then flower, fruit, and die back within a short two month period. They emerge from February through April, and are gone (dormant) by May or June.” “ The park is famous for its displays mountain laurel, rhododendron and flame azaleas.”
Shuckstack is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains of Swain County, North Carolina, in the southeastern United States. It has an elevation of 4,020 feet (1,230 m) above sea level, and rises approximately 2,300 feet (700 m) above Fontana Lake, to the south.
The Pleosporales is the largest order in the fungal class Dothideomycetes. By a 2008 estimate, it contained 23 families, 332 genera and more than 4700 species. The majority of species are saprobes on decaying plant material in fresh water, marine, or terrestrial environments, but several species are also associated with living plants as parasites, epiphytes or endophytes. The best studied species cause plant diseases on important agricultural crops e.g. Cochliobolus heterostrophus, causing southern corn leaf blight on maize, Phaeosphaeria nodorum causing glume blotch on wheat and Leptosphaeria maculans causing a stem canker on cabbage crops (Brassica). Some species of Pleosporales occur on animal dung, and a small number occur as lichens and rock-inhabiting fungi.
Pleosporaceae is a family of sac fungi. They are pathogenic to humans or saprobic on woody and dead herbaceous stems or leaves.
The Hysteriaceae are a taxonomic family of fungi and the only extant family of the order Hysteriales. Members of the Hysteriaceae are defined by the possession of a sexual structure called the hysterothecium, an elongated structure that opens by a longitudinal slit and releases sexually produced spores. The family is widely distributed, with many species found in temperate regions, and most are saprobic on wood and bark, although a few are parasitic on plants.
The Aliquandostipitaceae are a family of fungi in the Ascomycota, class Dothideomycetes. The family was described by Patrik Inderbitzin in 2001, and the order Jahnulales was created in 2002 to accommodate the family. The distinguishing characteristic for members of the family are the unusually wide hyphae that support the spore-bearing structures, and the presence of ascomata both with and without stalks. The genus Aliquandostipe has a pantropical distribution, having been found in Central America and southeast Asia; Jahnula has a wider distribution. Species in the family are saprobic, and are typically found growing on rotting wood.
Acanthostigma is a genus in the Tubeufiaceae family of fungi. Three new species were reported in 2010, growing from decomposing wood in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the United States.
Lindgomyces is a genus of aquatic fungi in the family Lindgomycetaceae. Described as new to science in 2010, the genus contained six species known from Japan and the USA. More were added later, up to 14 species were accepted by Wijayawardene et al. 2020.
Discover Life in America is a non-profit NGO founded in 1998. It is based in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and is located near the mountain resort city of Gatlinburg in Sevier County, Tennessee. The primary function of DLIA is to help administer the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, a joint effort with scientists and volunteers worldwide to create an inventory of all the living species located in GSMNP. This has been cited as one of the largest efforts of its kind, and has been compared to such efforts as the human genome project in terms of scope and potential effect on the study of biodiversity. Since it had been established, 922 species new to science and 7,391 species new to the park have been added to the ATBI. There is an estimated 80,000 species currently in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Acanthostigma multiseptatum is a species of fungus in the Tubeufiaceae family of fungi. It was isolated from decomposing wood in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A. multiseptatum differs from its cogenerate species by having longer asci and longer ascospores with more septa.
Acanthostigma filiforme is a species of fungus in the Tubeufiaceae family of fungi. It was isolated from decomposing wood in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A. filiforme differs from its cogenerate species by having longer ascospores with more septa.
Leccinum brunneo-olivaceum is a species of bolete fungus in the family Boletaceae. It was described as new to science in 1951 by Wally Snell, Ester Dick, and Lexemuel Ray Hesler. The type collection was made in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.
