Walking through thick shrubs of privet with his eyes trained to the ground, Michael Bowles drops suddenly at a patch of spindly green tubes.

"Tipularia discolor," Bowles announces the scientific name as he fingers the delicate plant. "It's a native orchid, and this grouping of about 3 square feet? It's between 30 and 40 years old."

Becky Stein/Special (ENLARGE)

Clearing the area, Chamblee Councilwoman Leslie Robson helped organize volunteers to rescue trees and plants.

Becky Stein/Special (ENLARGE)

Michael Bowles (left) clear trees for the new nursery area in Keswick Park.

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The cranefly orchid won't bloom until summer. By then, Bowles or other volunteers in Chamblee will have rescued it from one of the PATH Foundation's latest bike trails.

As residents in one DeKalb County neighborhood battle a PATH trail through their wooded sanctuary near Emory University, those in Chamblee are embracing another.

At the Emory site, the foundation faces opposition for clearing trees for a bicycle and pedestrian route between Mason Mill and Medlock parks north of Decatur. A group of residents hired an attorney to try to stop the project.

In Chamblee, the foundation must slice through a forest and ravine in the city-owned Keswick Park for a half-mile trail linking the park and Johnson Ferry Estates. Volunteers there have spent their weekends clearing the trail of clogging privet, a kind of evergreen, and saving the native species.

They will tend to the native plants in a temporary nursery, set up across the park, before replanting them when the trail is in by year's end. They also hope to have cultivated enough native plants to add them throughout the 45-acre park.

"Whether it's Mother Nature, Father Time or God-Given, it's what was here, and we have an obligation to maintain it," said Leslie Robson, a city councilwoman who has helped organize the volunteers, as she hiked along with Bowles. "We view PATH coming in as our opportunity to make these woods look like they used to."

City officials kicked in $10,000 to build and maintain the nursery. Mayor Eric Clarkson said the restoration fits into his vision for Keswick Park to be a showcase linear park.

PATH, too, thinks the project could be a model for its operations.

"We've worked with the Georgia Native Plant Society in the past, but we would love to replicate this sort of grass-roots effort," said foundation Executive Director Ed McBrayer. "We want to work with communities to make better trails. When it gets adversarial, we all lose a little bit."

In Chamblee, the self-described "plant nuts" get dirty every Sunday. Bowles has studied plant sciences and worked as a volunteer orchid specialist in the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Jean Oteness, another volunteer, is a backyard gardener whose home is adjacent to the park.

"The more you learn about what plants should be there, the more you notice them," Oteness said. "It's fascinating to go through the woods and be aware of all the little things."

On a recent foray, Bowles whoops at the sight of a white trillium, a type of lily. He calls the others over to see the white flower that gradually will bleed into a deep purple. Its existence means the privet hasn't won yet, since the evergreen would beat back the ants that the lily needs to plant its seeds.

It makes Robson think of the animals that would thrive with the cranefly orchid. The plant has spread along the ground where PATH will build the boardwalk to rise over the wetlands and Nancy Creek.

Healthy, the orchid will grow several inches tall and entice the moths it needs to pollinate. That in turn will lure birds and other wildlife.

But for now, it is just a papery collection of leaves and stems. Robson notes where the plant is, so it can be rescued, and begins mixing native dirt with potting soil for the day's other rescues.

"It's really easy for people to complain when one big tree gets cut down," she said. "But if you're not willing to save the small tree or tiny plant, you shouldn't complain."