About Exhibit

Parrish, an eight-foot sculpture of a red fox with its tail raised, drawn in flowing orange steel lines, stands among tall yellow flowers against deep green foliage.

Parrish, Created by Huelani Mei and produced by Hue Designs.

Meet the Artist

Artist Huelani Mei stands in her Hue Designs metal shop in front of Parrish, her unfinished steel sculpture of a red fox, before its orange powder coat is applied.

Huelani Mei with Parrish, mid-build, in her Atlanta metal fabrication shop.

Native Roots

A red fox (Vulpes vulpes) photographed in Georgia. “Mr Fox” by Mills Brock, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 3.0.

FOREST FORMS: WOODLAND WONDERS features twenty-one larger-than-life sculptures of woodland animals and plants. These artistic interpretations emerge along pathways and nestled among plantings and range in size from a charming three feet to an impressive ten feet tall. Crafted in durable, powder-coated steel and alive with color and movement, each sculpture invites guests to explore, photograph, and discover nature from a fresh perspective.

Created by renowned artist Huelani Mei, the exhibition showcases her signature flowing ‘line work’ style. These artworks capture the rhythm, energy, and spirit of the outdoors. Inspired by her deep love of adventure and nature, these joyful forms encourage visitors of all ages to slow down, look closer, and experience moments of reflection and WONDER!

Huelani Mei

HUELANI MEI holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Sculpture and Fine Arts from Georgia State University. She began her career working as a scenic artist for hotels and museums, and currently runs her own metal fabrication shop in Atlanta—Hue Designs—where she takes on commissions in addition to creating her own sculptures and other artworks for public display. Outside of her work, Huelani Mei spends as much time outside as possible, where she finds limitless inspiration for her art.

Native Roots is a companion guide to Forest Forms: Woodland Wonders by Huelani Mei of Hue Designs, created to help visitors connect the art to the natural world around them.

Art often begins with nature, and the works in Forest Forms: Woodland Wonders echo the forests, creeks and meadows of Dunwoody Nature Center, which we share with the wild residents of the Georgia Piedmont region, where Dunwoody sits.

Native Roots invites you to look twice. For each piece of artwork, Dunwoody Nature Center staff have paired a species from our region whose shape, color or story resembles it. Some live right here on our 22 acres, and others pass through the wider landscape.

Each species card (seen below) offers a short introduction grounded in research from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the University of Georgia, federal agencies such as the USDA Forest Service, and wildlife and extension agencies in neighboring states that share our species’ ranges.

Education is at the heart of our mission. We hope this guide sends you home seeing the art and the wildlife around you a little differently, and noticing more of both each time you visit.

Eastern Bumblebee

Bombus impatiens

The most common bumblebee species in Georgia, it has a special skill called “buzz pollination”. On flowers that keep their pollen locked inside, it grabs hold and vibrates its flight muscles to shake the pollen free. Tomatoes and eggplants, both in the nightshade family, depend on this technique for pollination. Honey bees can’t buzz pollinate, and tomatoes pollinated by bees produce more fruit, bigger yields and heavier tomatoes than those pollinated any other way.

Sources: UGA Extension Circular 1290, “The Buzz About Bees: Bumblebees Have a Lot to Offer”; Ohio State University Extension, ENT-0092, “Bumble Bee Pollination in Tomato Greenhouses”

Eastern Screech-Owl

Megascops asio

Dunwoody’s leafy backyards and wooded parks suit this owl, which needs only open woods or mature trees. Where food is plentiful, a suburban screech-owl may need just 10–15 acres, smaller than our 22. Statewide, it’s Georgia’s most common owl.

Source: Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division, “Screech Owls”
Listen: Cornell Lab – Eastern Screen-Owl

Carpenter Ants

Camponotus pennsylvanicus

The mature trees and fallen logs around Dunwoody Nature Center give these big ants plenty of places to nest. They’re named for chewing wood to create nest sites, but they don’t eat it. Piles of sawdust at the base of a tree are often the giveaway. In the wild, they help break down dead and decaying trees by excavating rotted wood. They are also the main food of the Pileated Woodpecker. Statewide, they’re active from late spring through early fall.

Sources: UGA Extension Bulletin 1225, “Biology and Management of Carpenter Ants”; UGA Extension Circular 929, “Carpenter Ants”; Penn State Extension, “Carpenter Ants”; Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “Pileated Woodpecker Life History”

Monarch Butterfly

 Danaus plexippus

Dunwoody sits right on the path of one of nature’s great journeys. Monarchs pass through Georgia twice a year: north in spring (April–May) and south in fall (August–October) on their way to the mountains of Mexico. In the Piedmont, they stop to refuel on gardens and wildflowers, and they breed here too. Their caterpillars can only eat milkweed leaves, so native milkweed is essential. Monarchs are a staple of our annual Butterfly Experience, which falls right as the fall migration begins. With populations declining, the monarch is under review for federal protection, and every native milkweed and nectar plant helps.

Sources: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, “Monarch Butterfly Conservation in Georgia”; Georgia DNR, “Georgia Butterflies” brochure; State Botanical Garden of Georgia (UGA), “Monarchs, Milkweed & Georgia Gardeners”; UGA Extension, “Monarch butterflies migrating through Georgia now”; WABE, with Georgia DNR wildlife biologist Anna Yellin

Big Brown Bat

Eptesicus fuscus

If a bat is roosting in one of our bat boxes, there’s a good chance it’s this one. Across Georgia, it’s the bat most commonly found in buildings and bat boxes. It has glossy brown fur and a swollen muzzle, and it eats mostly beetles. It provides free pest control: a big brown bat can eat up to a third of its body weight in insects every night, often including agricultural pests. It is one of the last bats still flying in fall.

Sources: Georgia DNR, “Identification Guide for Bats in Artificial Roosts”; Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, “Big Brown Bat”; Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, “Big Brown Bat”

Blue Dasher

Pachydiplax longipennis

Males have green eyes, a striped thorax and a dusty-blue abdomen. Both males and females guard their own feeding territories. A female can lay 300–700 eggs into wetland plants, like those around Dunwoody Nature Center’s boardwalk, in about 30 seconds. They’re natural mosquito control at every stage of life. The underwater young eat aquatic prey, including mosquito larvae, and the adults catch mosquitoes in flight, which helps keep these pests in check. Healthy ponds and wetlands produce more dashers.

 

Northern Cardinal

Cardinalis cardinalis

Look for a flash of red in Dunwoody’s hedges, thickets and woodland edges. Cardinals live here year-round, and suburban yards mixed with patches of woods suit them perfectly. In fact, the growth of towns and suburbs helped them spread across eastern North America. They also help keep gardens balanced. In summer, insects such as caterpillars, beetles and grasshoppers make up about half their diet, and parents feed their nestlings mostly insects. The rest of the year they eat the seeds and fruits of native plants like dogwood, sumac and wild grapes such as muscadine (Vitis rotundifolia). Here’s a surprise: unlike most songbirds, female cardinals sing, sometimes from the nest and sometimes in duets with their mates.

Sources: University of Florida IFAS Extension, “The Northern Cardinal: The Neighborhood Show-off” (WEC482); Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “Northern Cardinal Life History”; Pennsylvania Game Commission, “Northern Cardinal” Wildlife Note; Maryland DNR, “Creating a Wild Backyard: Northern Cardinal”
Listen: Cornell Lab – Northern Cardinal

Common Dandelion

Taraxacum officinale

The common dandelion originated in Eurasia and has become naturalized throughout the United States. It is an introduced, cool-season perennial and one of the earliest spring bloomers. It is a heavy seed producer that builds a long-lived seedbank and moves in quickly wherever ground is disturbed. Its early blooms offer nectar, and sometimes pollen, to bees and other pollinators when few flowers are open. That value depends on location: dandelion pollen is lower quality than that of other early bloomers. It matters most in paved urban areas with few flowers, and much less where native spring wildflowers are plentiful.

Sources: USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System, “Taraxacum officinale”; University of New Hampshire Extension, “Are dandelions important for pollinators?”

American Black Bear

Ursus americanus

Black bears were common across Georgia before the 1800s. After a serious decline, they have recovered to about 5,100 statewide. Core populations live in the north Georgia mountains, along central Georgia’s Ocmulgee River and around the Okefenokee Swamp. The Piedmont region, where Dunwoody sits, isn’t core bear range, but bears are increasingly passing through. Georgia DNR (Department of Natural Resources) has documented natural range expansion in recent years. Young bears leaving their mothers to find territory often travel south from the Blue Ridge Mountains of north Georgia, and bears have been reported in nearby Sandy Springs. As they roam, they plant the forest: bears eat large amounts of fruit, and seeds that pass through their gut may germinate better. There are no recorded bear attacks on humans in Georgia.

Sources: Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division, “Black Bear Fact Sheet” (rev. 2021); CBS News Atlanta, with Georgia DNR urban wildlife biologist Blake Graber; Maehr, D.S., “The Black Bear as a Seed Disperser in Florida,” Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission

White-tailed Deer

Odocoileus virginianus

Many people picture deer deep in the forest, but they actually live on forest edges, not in large stretches of mature woods. Under a closed canopy, little sunlight reaches the forest floor, so few of the low plants deer eat can grow there. Where light gets in, browse grows. Edges give deer food and cover side by side, and suburbs like Dunwoody have created plenty of them, mixing lawns, gardens, shrubs and patches of woods. As a result, suburban deer can live on much smaller home ranges and reach high densities. Deer also spread seeds: they eat many kinds of plants and deposit the seeds in their droppings, sometimes miles away. Statewide, deer were once nearly eliminated, but careful wildlife management brought them back, and Georgia’s herd now exceeds 1.2 million.

Sources: Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division, “White-tailed Deer Fact Sheet”; Cornell Cooperative Extension, “White-Tailed Deer” (Wildlife Damage Management Fact Sheet); University of Missouri Extension, “Enhancing White-Tailed Deer Habitats on Your Property: Woodlands and Forests”; U.S. Geological Survey, “Movement patterns of rural and suburban white-tailed deer in Massachusetts”; Cornell University, “Dispersing seeds is newly discovered role for deer”

Northern Sundrop

Oenothera tetragona

This perennial wildflower grows in dry woods and along roadsides. Red-tinged buds open into bright yellow blooms. Sundrops are a friend to wildlife, sharing nectar and pollen with bees, butterflies and hummingbirds, and seeds with birds. Their closest friendship is with specialist bees, such as the evening primrose sweat bee (Lasioglossum oenotherae), which rely on Oenothera pollen to raise their young. In return, the bees carry pollen from flower to flower, a partnership that keeps both thriving.

Sources: NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, “Oenothera tetragona”; North Carolina Native Plant Society, “Oenothera tetragona”; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew – Plants of the World Online

Red Fox

Vulpes vulpes

Suburbs like Dunwoody, with their mix of woods, lawns and edges, suit the red fox well. Red foxes are quite common in urban and suburban areas across Georgia. Their origin is debated. Georgia DNR describes them as introduced by European settlers, while a USDA Forest Service genetic study suggests southeastern red foxes descend largely from native North American foxes. Either way, they earn their keep as natural rodent control. Mice, meadow voles and rabbits make up most of a red fox’s diet, which helps keep these fast-breeding animals in check.

Sources: Georgia DNR, “Fox Fact Sheet”; USDA Forest Service Research, “The origin of recently established red fox populations in the United States” (Statham et al., 2012); North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, “Red Fox”; Missouri Department of Conservation, “Red Fox”

Purple Passionflower

Passiflora incarnata

Also called maypop, its showy blooms and climbing habit make it a favorite on fences and arbors. Here at Dunwoody Nature Center, it engulfs the fence around our parking lot. From late spring until the first frost, it’s one of the best places to watch the bond between this vine and the Gulf Fritillary unfold. Look for eggs on the leaves and tendrils, spiky orange caterpillars munching the foliage, chrysalises hanging nearby and adult butterflies drifting overhead. Passionflower is the Gulf Fritillary’s only host plant, and it also feeds Variegated Fritillary caterpillars. Its flowers need cross-pollination to set seed, a job done by bumblebees and carpenter bees. The fruit develops two to three months after flowering.

Sources: USDA NRCS Plant Fact Sheet, “Purple Passionflower”; UF/IFAS EDIS, “Gulf Fritillary Butterfly”; Missouri Department of Conservation, “Passion Flower”; Alabama Butterfly Atlas, “Gulf Fritillary”