The following was taken from Frank Emory's website by his permission:

As one who has photographed Alabama's natural beauty for more than thirty years, I regard a stand of Cahaba lilies in bloom as one of our most beautiful natural sights. Late in the day when the glare of sun subsides and shadows creep over the landscape, thousands of delicate white flowers sitting atop the river become an impressive sight. Cahaba lilies are even more beautiful at dawn when a fog flows through thousands of fresh new blooms.

My first exposure to the Cahaba Lily was more than 40 years ago. My dad bought a mail order plan for building a little flat-bottomed boat with marine plywood and one summer day we launched it onto the Cahaba at Highway 280. I was struck by the thousands of black mussel shells piled along the riverbank. My dad informed me that people would collect them to cook over a fire on the riverbank, leaving piles of shells behind. There were no lilies in bloom on that hot day or I would surely have remembered, but I do recall plenty of the green stalks. I was curious why these odd looking, three-foot tall stalks were scattered about the river. At places we had to get out of the boat and drag it over rocks and I recall a pungent odor when we trampled over the stalks. It's not like they were endangered or of any concern to anyone.

Back then the Cahaba was as unique as it is today. In this free flowing river you find shoals and shallow areas where you can wade around on a stone bottom. Whenever you look into these shallow waters, there always seems to be something of interest, if nothing more than the topology of the river bottom.

My dad informed me about the redhorse suckers schooling along the riverbank. "You won't catch them on a hook," he said. "You have to snare them. You take a thin wire with a loop and hold it in the water until a fish goes through it, then jerk the wire. "It seemed like a far-fetched way to try to catch a fish but on a later trip I got to try it. I leaned on a tree trunk that extended over the water and submerged my snare into a school of eight or so suckers holding in a current. They scattered but I remained motionless and they soon returned. Ever so slowly I maneuvered the wire onto a fish and to my surprise, pulled it out on the first try.

Redhorse still live in the Cahaba and love to feed on small snails, which are a good indicator for good water quality. At the Cahaba River NWR and Hargrove Shoals you can see thousands of snails on the rock bottom, some places so thick you can't walk without pushing them aside or stepping on them.

Before the construction of hydroelectric dams, which dramatically raised water levels, other Alabama rivers had more in common with the Cahaba. The worlds largest stand of Cahaba Lilies used to be at Squaw Shoals, 26 miles up from Tuscaloosa on the Black Warrior river. Alabama's dammed rivers are much like a series of lakes. In these deep impoundments, you can only imagine what lies beneath the surface, but in the natural flowing Cahaba you can see interesting varieties of fish, snails, turtles, amphibians and other aquatic life. Prehistoric sturgeon still live here as do a number of other uncommon species. Dragon flies and other small creatures occupy the river and a hawk moth is primarily responsible for pollinating the lilies.

You may see Frank's photographs and more of his descriptive prose at
frankemory.com and https:/www.instagram.com/frankemory

VB