Sunflowers and Gourds

Posted on October 14, 2016 by Kim

FUN FACT: Sunflowers are composite flowers, where all is not what it seems. What look like petals are actually infertile ray flowers that attract vital pollinator species to the plant. The center of the sunflower is made up of hundreds of small flowers, each with five petals, a male stamen and a female stigma, where pollination takes place.

Grasshopper.

Soybean pods.

Squash.

Wheel Bug, Arilus cristatus.

FUN FACT: One of a group of true bugs known as assassin bugs, in the ambush bug family, Reduviidae. They eat soft-bodied insects, stink bugs and, as we witnessed, bees. A wheel bug injects enzyme-laced saliva into its prey, which paralyzes the victim and liquefies their internal parts, which the wheel bug proceeds to consume. Yuck! Adding to their allure, they inflict a painful bite on humans.

They have their good side, though; many of their preferred prey are pests, so they are welcomed in gardens and on farms. And they just look cool.

This gourd looked just like a goose to me. I took him home and cleaned him up.

Behold – Gourdon Goose.

Left behind.

Looking back on a fun fall day on the farm.

On Empire Bluff

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Kim

The old ones say “the journey is the destination,” and many times that is true. There were wonders to be found along the trail in Sleeping Bear Dunes, to be sure. But the destination – oh, my, the destination…

The destination at the end of this trail quickly became my new favorite place in Sleeping Bear: Empire Bluff, a sandy ridge high above Lake Michigan. The path to it snaked through thick forests of beech and maple, ending at a boardwalk along the bluff. Openings in the greenery offered a sneak peak of the vistas to come.

Looking down at Lake Michigan 400 feet below. The variety of hues never cease to amaze me. How many names are there for these shades? Blue, green, turquoise, aquamarine, cerulean, azure, beryl, cobalt, peacock… I don’t think there are nearly enough words to describe the colors of the lake.

The view from the Empire Bluff Overlook. The shoreline stretches north along the Empire Embayment. A sand bar separates South Bar Lake from Lake Michigan. Sleeping Bear Dune itself – or what is left of it after years of wind erosion – is a small dark hill perched on the tip of the sandy bluff in the distance. Offshore to the left, partially obscured by cedar trees, is South Manitou Island.

Everyone comes for the view. Not everyone pays attention to it. Sometimes I wonder where the next generation of conservationists will come from if kids never get their faces out of their phones, even when in the presence of beauty such as this.

At least some folks are putting their phones to good use. I took cell photos here too, mostly to tease my friends: “I’m on top of the world, and you’re not!”

Not all is right with that world up here, but it’s hard to find fault with this loveliness. I was enthralled with the purple flowers that covered the open sandy slopes. I couldn’t resist them, even though I knew them for what they were – a dreaded invasive plant.

Spotted Knapweed, Centaurea stoebe, to be precise. It’s an Eastern European aster that arrived on the West Coast in the 1800s, probably in an alfalfa shipment. In 80 or 90 years, it spread to 26 counties in the Pacific Northwest. 20 years later, it was in 45 of 50 states. A pioneer species, it takes over fields, road sides, sand prairies, anywhere there is open disturbed land. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

But it’s such a pretty nasty…

This metallic green sweat bee thought so, too. There are a lot of species of sweat bees all over the world. Which one this is, I have no idea. It was enough to just watch it flashing emerald green in the sun, busily pollinating the invasive plants.

Driftwood and weathered old logs made for decorative accents among the wildflowers, grasses and small shrubs.

A pair of Bald Eagles soared over the ridge.

The joint was jumping, literally. Grasshoppers abounded. If I got too close, they’d hop a foot or two in the air, and fly away with buzzing wings. In flight, they looked like butterflies. Here’s the Grasshopper King, about to take up his scepter.

Looking up the hill to the east.

Beyond the boardwalk, the sandy trail continued along the knife’s edge of the bluff. To the south is Platte Bay. I turned back here, leaving other wonders to be discovered another time.

That’s the thing about favorite places. They always leave you wanting more.

Almost Heaven: Bear Rocks and Bogs

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Kim

We came to the end of the road – and found a trail.

To the north of the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area in West Virginia lies Bear Rocks, a spectacular outcropping of white sandstone and quartz perched on the Allegheny Front. The rocks are surrounded by the 477-acre Bear Rocks Preserve, owned by the Nature Conservancy, which has been instrumental in preserving and protecting land in the Dolly Sods. After touring Dolly Sods by car, Robb, Don and I were eager to get out and explore on foot, stretch our legs a little.

A view of the Bear Rocks trail. No, that’s not a creek, it’s a trail. A very wet trail. After a lot of puddle-jumping, we turned back. The trail doesn’t go to Bear Rocks, which is what we were interested in. So we followed a cobweb of informal trails through the heath barrens to the ridge.

I’ve been using the word “heath” a lot. What is it?

“Heaths” are a family of acid-tolerant, low-growing plants. Huckleberry, blueberry, sheep and mountain laurel (left), rhododendron, tea berry, bear oak.

All of these plants are old friends of ours from the low-lying but acidic NJ Pine Barrens. Time and again, we find them in the higher elevations of the Appalachians.

Here they inhabit tundra-like meadows known locally as “huckleberry plains.”

Flagged red spruce trees on Bear Rocks.

The view east from the ridge. The Allegheny Front drops 2000’ here to the valley of the South Branch of the Potomac River. Rumor has it that on a clear day, a visitor can see seven mountain ridges, and on the clearest days, Hawksbill and Stony Man peaks in Shenandoah National Park. This wasn’t a clear day. I still can count four ridgelines.

Rocks, rhododendron and red spruce.

We had a lot of fun clambering all over Bear Rocks. Finding our way back through the heath to the main trail was a little challenging. We were glad the plants were so short that we could see right over them.

On the way back through Dolly Sods, we had time for one more stop, the interpretive Northland Loop Nature Trail. Lots of different ecosystems on one short trail.

Also a stern warning about unexploded ordnance. The Dolly Sods was a training area during World War II.

We managed to survive the walk with all limbs intact.

The trail started through a typical forest of red spruce and rhododendrons.

It was raining, still, which gave me some nice water droplets to play with.

Except for a few unidentified birds, this was the only wildlife we saw in Dolly Sods. No deer, no chipmunks, NO BEARS. Somehow that absence made this snail all the more welcome.

The highlight of the Northland Loop is Alder Run Bog, a large northern peat bog. Bogs are waterlogged ecosystems where the plants actually grow on the surface of the water. They are unusual at high altitudes, but not in Dolly Sods.

The margins of Alder Run Bog are populated by spruce trees, heaths, sedges and ferns. A boardwalk leads out into the bog, which is covered in sphagnum moss and…

Sundews! This is a much-loved carnivorous plant we see sometimes in the Pine Barrens. We were unprepared for the vastness of the sundew stands here in Alder Run Bog.

FUN FACT: No more than a couple of inches high, these tiny plants attract insects with a sweet secretion, than trap them with the sticky mucilage of their moveable tentacles. The prey dies of exhaustion or asphyxiation, whereupon the plant digests it. Charming, aren’t they?

Back through the forest, we came upon a river of rocks.

Among the rocks we found some white reindeer moss. Not a moss but a lichen, it’s common in the Pine Barrens, just like sphagnum moss and sundews. The similarities between the plant life of the Pinelands and that of high-altitude acidic Appalachian ecosystems continues to amaze us.

The road home. We had a wonderful day exploring Dolly Sods, despite the mist and rain. But our time in West Virginia was drawing to a close.

While doing some research for these posts, I have seen many images of Dolly Sods and Bear Rocks unlike any of mine. Photos of clear blue skies, mountain ranges rolling off into the distance, meadows abloom with flowers, heaths ablaze in autumnal reds and golds. Something to aspire to, I guess. Something for a return visit (or two!) to West Virginia. I could spend several days right here in Dolly Sods.

Maybe I’d even see a bear…

Birthday Flowers

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Kim

Today is the Wild Edge’s birthday!

Together we’re 3 years old, this little blog and I.

I thought I’d send myself a floral bouquet, photographically picked at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware.

On our first birthday, I wrote an impassioned plea for readers to get outside, to appreciate and protect Nature. Slightly paraphrased, those words are no less vital today:

My hope with the Wild Edge is to reach beyond fellow photographers and nature lovers, to those who may be more at home inside. If I can pique their interest with photos, words, humor and random fun facts, maybe they’ll go outside. If they go outside, maybe they’ll fall in love with the wildness around them. If they fall in love… Well, the rest is up to them.

So, the Wild Edge has been running for three years now. Has it worked?

Has anyone out there been intrigued enough by something you’ve seen or read to go to a park, preserve or other natural place yourself? Do you now make a habit of it?

Do you recycle, pick up litter, support land preservation? Are you encouraging young conservationists?

Will anyone stand up for Mother Earth and her creatures?

If so, great! You have the appreciation of a grateful blog mistress. If not, keep reading the Wild Edge. Maybe something in the days and weeks to come will spark your interest and inspire you to GO OUTSIDE!

My Happy Place

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Kim

Everyone needs a place of retreat, a place to restore one’s soul. Through the long winter I pictured it only in my dreams. Serene. Meditative. Calming. My happy place.

Y’all close your eyes now. Let’s go there in our minds…

Ah, that’s better. Wave goodbye to the dark, dreary, landlocked days of winter. Shed the layers of thermals and fleece. Wade through the shallows, and settle into the kayak. Turn your face to the warming rays of the sun.

Now, dip the paddle blade into the water, and smoothly, gently, pull. Feel the boat glide effortlessly forward.

Ahhh. That’s better.

After six long months on land, I am once again a creature of the water. Blessed with a warm sunny day in the middle of April, I pack up my kayak and head for the Pine Barrens. Lake Oswego awaits, glittering indigo under a clear blue sky. No longer a dream, my happy place is now reality.

The water of the lake flows dripping off my paddle, and runs chuckling down the length of the kayak’s hull.

Ssssshlooooop -drip-drip-drip – drip – d r i p – d r i p – gurgle – gurgle

The first strokes are awkward, and I find myself paddling not across open water, but through a mass of lily pads and dark green pondweeds. Oops! Better watch where I am going.

Hmmm. That looks interesting on the other side of the bridge. I wonder if I can fit under there?

Easily spooked, turtles dive at the mere hint of my presence. I stow my paddle and drift, and soon a turtle forgets me and begins to nibble at a nice wet salad.

My happy place. Around the upper curve of the lake and down the far shore, past the dam and the portage beach. Blue sky, green trees, dark blue water. Ahhh.

At the southeastern end of the lake, I find this fantastical sculpture, the twisted remains of a long-deceased tree.

Lakes don’t occur naturally in the Pine Barrens. Something had to die for the pond to be born.

Gone, but not forgotten.

My happy place is… a cemetery. The ghosts of drowned cedar trees haunt the shallow places, a reminder of the forest that once was.

Yet life abounds among the tree spirits. A fallen phantom attracts a turtle, very much alive. Several of his shelled buddies are also soaking up the sun nearby.

Bleached cedar tree trunks are the totem poles of the Pine Barrens lake, the resting places of arboreal souls. I drift among them like the clouds wisp across the sky, soaking up the twitter of tree swallows.

A spectral white trunk leans on another for support. Like the wrinkles of an old woman’s face, its weathered skin whispers of all that it has seen. Wait – what is perched on the right end of the log? Photobombed by a dragonfly!

There’s that sound again. QUONK! Like a metallic thunk. I heard a few of them near the launch, but at this end of the lake the sounds are much more numerous. No bird I know makes that sound. It has to be a frog. But what one? No matter how close I get to each QUONK, it’s not close enough. I see no frogs.

One of my missions is to find where the Oswego River comes into Oswego Lake. I follow a pair of honking geese into a cove. At the far end is a narrow passage into another cove. Beyond that a thin little stream squeezes between trees and disappears.

Could this be the Oswego River?

But there’s another cove, with another stream beyond it disappearing into the trees. This one looks wider, more like a real stream. Hmmm. Mission postponed. Best to leave some mystery for another day.

Left also for another day is this inviting little pathway.

Journey’s end.

Ahhh, that’s better. My spirit has been soothed. Winter is past; its cold and confinement have faded. A season of warm days and blue water unfolds before me like a map. A map that leads to…

My happy place.

Early Green

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Kim

I’m not fond of the color brown. In fact, I don’t even think it’s a color. It’s more like a background, and one I’m tired of. For most of my life I lived in a beige house, which is brown in a wishy-washy mood. With apologies to my U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service friends in their brown and tan uniforms, the only good brown thing is chocolate.

As mild as this past winter was, I really have no cause to complain. But since the trees and shrubs lost their leaves in November, life outdoors has been a sea of brown bare trees and beige dried foliage. Now, I admire the structural bones of a single bare tree as much as the next person, but this is too much of a good thing. Momentary escapes to the Pine Barrens and Jersey Shore offered only momentary relief from the monotony. After five months, I am ready for change.

Nothing says “change” like green. Pale yellow-green. Bright kelly green. Deep forest green. The green of Nature. The green of Spring. The green of New Life.

What a relief to see green in all its variations on a recent evening walk at John Heinz NWR, and soak in the sights and sounds of the new arrivals early Spring brought with it. Like the willows dancing in the breeze while a jet contrail slices the clear blue sky.

Spring greens are subtle. Pussy willow along the water’s edge.

Sometimes the green is the canvas on which other colors are painted. Just the carpet of green leaves would be welcome sight. The golden flowers add that touch of flair.

Sometimes spring greens are red! At this time of year, many of the trees are bright crimson, as the red maples burst into bud…

…And flower.

Sometimes the green is not so welcome, like new shoots of Phragmites, an invasive plant found throughout the Refuge that a friend and I are trying to eradicate from a small plot. We knew it would come back. The fight is renewed for another growing season.

The greening of the land brings with it new arrivals freshly returned from their wintering grounds. Red-winged Blackbirds have been back for a few weeks. Their CONK-ER-REE calls are anything but musical, but nonetheless music to my winter-weary ears.

The air is filled with the songs of birds. Song Sparrows, Carolina Wrens and Cardinals join the blackbird chorus. There’s an amphibian choir singing as well, as frogs have come out of the mud where they spent the winter to look for mates. The aptly named Spring Peepers make a surprisingly loud, high-pitched PEEP continuously. These are tiny frogs, no bigger than a fingernail. In all my searching, I have never seen one, though I have been nearly deafened by their noise. Singing tenor to the peepers’ soprano are the Wood Frogs, who sound more like ducks, with their ragged QUACK call.

Snapping turtles have also come out of the mud, and cruise along at the water’s surface.

Tree Swallows came back recently. Now the sky over the impoundment is filled with the little blue jewels hawking insects. Which means, of course, that the insects are back too. The marshy environment of Heinz Refuge would be miserable with mosquitos were it not for our swallow friends. Which is why we have nest boxes for them.

Frequent squabbles break out over those nest boxes. This is prime real estate.

Great Egrets arrived last week. This one was enjoying an hors d’oeuvre, hoping for a more filling main course.

Here’s the greenest photo of all. Yes, I know – there’s no green, just the dreaded brown. This is one of our Bald Eagle pair sitting on its nest. Inside that nest are one or more eggs. Any day now (it might already have happened) a tiny, fluffy eaglet will break its way out of the shell and start its new life.

New life. It just doesn’t get any greener than that.

Lost on the Lakes

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Kim

Now, as the cold days draw near, close your eyes and dream…dream of a Michigan summer…

The sun shines brightly in an azure sky laced with fluffy white clouds. All is quiet but for the fading voices ashore and the rhythm of the paddle. Dip, swish, drip, drip; dip, swish, drip, drip.

The kayak glides effortlessly across the deep blue of Hamlin Lake toward an island of rich greenery and white sands. A cool breeze brushes warm skin and paints ripples on the canvas of the water.

At the small island’s tip, driftwood and old pilings bleach in the sun while a single tree keeps watch. A kayak rests on the shore, awaiting the return of its paddlers from an exploration of the island’s wild interior.

Across Hamlin Lake lies the inviting inlet of the much smaller Lost Lake. A spit of land barely ten feet wide separates the two lakes.

The Lost Lake Trail spans the inlet on an elevated walkway. Underneath, an uprooted stump has wedged itself under the bridge. This is the land of drowned forests, cut down and buried under water in the name of progress. Progress complete, the lakes are now a place for play.

Lost Lake is serene, and the water amazingly clear. Every tree stump and aquatic plant can be seen with clarity.

The coves offer a sheltered place for water lilies and sedges to grow. On the isthmus, a tree leans at a precarious angle. The peacefulness of a summer’s day is deceptive; the Lake Michigan coast is a harsh environment, and whipping winter winds take their toll on trees clinging to the water’s edge.

A towering sand dune offers a place to stop, rest and explore.

If snails would seek sanctuary from predators, they will not find it here. The shallows of Lost Lake offer no hiding place. Yet again, the crystal clear water astounds.

A pair of damselflies patrols over a field of water lilies.

Wee mushrooms loom large over moss and pine needles, a landscape in miniature on the forest floor.

Tiny treasures such as this captivate the imagination and tempt the soul to linger.

But nearby the narrow entrance to a small cove beckons, dark and mysterious.

At its mouth, a fallen log has been eaten away by time like Swiss cheese. In one nook, new life has taken root.

Nothing is so tenacious as a plant. It takes but a tiny bit of soil, tucked in a crevice of an old tree stump, for a new tree to sprout and grow. Water, soil, light. What more could a tree wish?

Mallards splash and bathe by the roots of an overturned tree…

…while a green frog idles in the shade.

An intricate entwining of twisted white limbs adorned with greenery graces the shore. Tree sculpture is but one form of Nature’s artwork.

All too soon, fierce winter will intrude upon peaceful meditations of summer. When it comes, find sanctuary in dreams of sheltered coves and sand beaches. The dip, swish, drip, drip of the paddle. The plants swaying sinuously beneath the clear water, the sparkle of the sun on the surface, the sand and the trees reflected there.

Savor the moments spent lost in reverie… on the lost lakes.

On The Massanutten

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Kim

On Skyline Drive, in all but the deepest fog, there is no missing the Massanutten. How can you overlook a 50 mile long mountain that runs through the heart of the Shenandoah Valley? It’s so big it has its own valley, for gosh sakes!

Signal Knob, Massanutten’s northern peak, has long held a fascination for my friends and me. So, naturally, we wanted to climb to the top of it.

5 miles each way? 2700 feet of elevation gain?

What could go wrong?

At first, the narrow Signal Knob trail climbed gently along a small run through deep moist woods. Ferns, mosses and shrubs adorned the understory. We passed on old building and then a spring. Beyond that the trail turned sharply and began to climb steeply.

Just past the spring I found a purple mushroom. Purple!

The forest became drier as we climbed higher, and we started seeing talus slopes to the left. Talus, or scree, is an accumulation of broken rock and boulders that have crumbled, and then tumbled, from cliffs higher on the mountain. The lichens that cover the rocks give them their greenish tint.

The trees thinned to the right and we began to get views across a valley to another slope. An argument ensued between Don, who was certain we were hiking on the west arm of the Massanutten and looking at the east arm, and Robb, who was certain he knew where north was and that Don had it backwards. This argument continued for most of the walk, and I am not certain it ever got cleared up satisfactorily.

Because they weren’t listening to me. I suggested that we were hiking on the east arm of the Massanutten, and looking across a small valley at another ridge on the same east arm, in the opposite direction of the other arm of the mountain. Guess who was right?

You got it. But does anyone ever listen to me? Nope, no one ever listens to me.

Arguments (temporarily) shelved, we continued up the trail. Soon the habitat got seriously weird.

The first hint was the presence of low-bush blueberry.

Followed by black jack oak. Mountain laurel. Sand on the trail.

Pines with three needles, and – oh look! Needles growing out of the trunk. Pitch pines!

Wait, did we take a wrong turn? How did we end up in the New Jersey Pine Barrens?

We didn’t, of course. In this part of the Appalachians, dry southwest-facing slopes with poor sandy soil support many of the same trees and plants we see in the Pine Barrens.

The similarity in flora to the Pinelands fascinated us for the rest of the hike.

Here’s one of the rare rocks that wasn’t covered in lichen and moss. The weathering of the quartz-rich stone here was the source of the sand under our feet.

There were lots of rock formations along the way, one of which Robb just had to climb…

Don just had to follow…

and then me too, because it was such a nice cool place to rest.

Then I just had to take their picture.

A short time later we reached the Buzzard Rock Overlook. That’s “Overlook.” I thought we were standing on Buzzard Rock, and was unimpressed.

Then I learned we were looking across the valley at Buzzard Rock, which was a dramatic rock formation on the other side of the Passage Creek valley.

At this point we had been hiking for 2½ hours but had covered only 1½ miles of the 5 miles to Signal Knob. The trail from there only gets steeper and rockier. By now, any thought Don had of getting to Signal Knob had vanished, and we all agreed Buzzard Rock Overlook was enough. Besides, it was time for lunch.

With that, we turned around and walked down the way we had come up. A 10 mile hike to Signal Knob turned into a 3 mile walk to Buzzard Rock Overlook. Don claimed that was the plan all along. Conquer the Massanutten?

Maybe we gentled it a little.

No matter. We’d scrambled over rocks, argued over directions, puzzled over trees and shrubs, exclaimed over magic mushrooms, marveled over views. In the end, we’d gained something far more awesome than we’d bargained for, an intimate experience with a massive mountain.

All in a day on the Massanutten.

Oh, Shenandoah! (Reprise)

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Kim

Independence Day, 2015. The day Don and I returned to the scene of the crime. The offense? Visiting a National Treasure without Robb. This Fourth of July we were to serve the term of our punishment.

Three months after we left Shenandoah National Park, we returned for a weekend, this time with Robb in tow. A chance for Don and I to introduce him to the wonders of Skyline Drive.

What a change in the landscape! When we left in April, the mountainsides were mostly brown with tinges of the lime green of new spring growth. Now all is lush dark green.

With plans to hike to up The Massanutten toward Signal Knob the next day, Robb and Don took the opportunity to take a compass heading and puzzle over the proper approach.

Robb on one of the rock faces that line parts of the east side of Skyline Drive. Now who’s doing the hard time?

With all these vast mountain vistas and valley views in a new environment, what’s Robb looking at? Plants, of course.

There’s this one spiky flower we kept seeing along the roadsides as we were driving.

We couldn’t identify it on the move, but it was never present at the overlooks.

Finally Robb and I walked back along the road to take a closer look.

Armed with a hand lens and Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, we were able to identify it as Cimicifuga racemes, commonly called Black Snakeroot or Black Cohosh. Mystery solved!

A tree and granite vignette.

Headlights appear from the mist. Shenandoah’s only tunnel bores 670 feet through the granite of Marys Rock. Fog along the Skyline Drive. How – familiar.

Franklin Cliffs never ceases to delight. I could spend the whole day here, clambering around on the rocks. Who says crime doesn’t pay?

Man vs. mountain. From the looks of it, the mountain won.

Always an argument with these two.

Cedar Waxwing, wearing a robber’s mask.

Columbine.

Robb and I had wanted to walk to a waterfall. Small problem – the crowds. It was the Fourth of July in one of America’s most popular National Parks, after all.

We opted instead to take the hike to the top of Stony Man, knowing Robb would love scrambling around on the boulders.

Except that those boulders were covered with people. On the horizon, ominous dark clouds were quickly swallowing the views. And as we turned to leave, the skies opened up.

Oh great. Thunder and lightning. And there were Don and I on the second highest peak in Shenandoah, clutching metal trekking poles. Cruel and unusual punishment.

The rain was relentless, and we were walking downhill in a rushing streambed that used to be a trail. Oddly, I was thoroughly enjoying it. I’d not been feeling well that day, but the rain was cooling and rejuvenating. Even when I had to pour it out of my “waterproof” boots at trail’s end.

As we reached our car, the rains stopped. But of course. By the time we returned to Skyland Resort for a brief stop, the skies were clearing and the sun was coming out. The mountain air had a delicious washed-clean feel to it.

Later, in a nondescript hotel room, a different kind of washing took place. Don used a hair dryer on his cash, blowing dry each individual paper bill. Money laundering at its most elemental.

Same scenery, different crime.

Robb relishing the view from Franklin Cliffs, while Don and I served out our sentence for neglecting him, with no time off for good behavior.

If spending a day in Shenandoah National Park is “punishment”, I’m going to have to be very, very naughty.

Wildflowers and Woods

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Kim

Old trees float on a sea of wildflowers, Cove Hardwood Nature Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Our timing was way off.

Best to visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park during the peak of fall foliage season, or in summer when the mountains are a lush deep green. Instead we were there during mid-April, before the trees leafed out. The mountains were still a dull grayish brown in all my photos. And did I mention the rain?

Squirrel Corn, Cove Hardwood Nature Trail.

Our timing was spot-on in one sense, though – we visited in the peak of the spring ephemeral wildflower season.

Many wildflowers live their entire above-ground life in a few weeks in the spring.

Taking advantage of warm soil, abundant moisture, and the full force of the unfiltered sunlight, these fleeting beauties awaken in early spring.

Drawing on last year’s reserves of energy, they send up stems and leaves while gathering and storing as much fresh energy as they can. They bloom, and set and disperse seeds.

Not all violets are purple. Clockwise, from top left: Canadian Violet, Early Yellow Violet, Woolly Blue Violet, Bird’s Foot Violet.

Feeding and reproduction complete, the flowers, stems and leaves wither and die, leaving the strong roots and rhizomes below the soil to enter dormancy until the next year.

Rue-anemone, Deep Creek Trail.

All of this activity in just a few short weeks, and we happened to be there to see it!

Showy Orchis, Deep Creek Trail.

Plant diversity in the Smokies is matched by only a few areas worldwide. Nearly 1500 kinds of flowering plants call the southern Appalachians home.

Fringed Phacelia, Cove Hardwood Nature Trail.

Abundant rainfall, coupled with a wide range of elevations, provides a variety of habitats for our leafy friends. Most of the park is heavily forested. There are eight distinct forest types.

The Cove Hardwood Nature Trail.
Photo by Don Nigroni.

Don and I wanted to explore an old-growth forest, something neither of us had experienced before. We chose the Cove Hardwood Nature Trail, which winds through a cove hardwood forest in Sugarlands Valley.

This cove is cool, sheltered and very moist, with tiny runs seeping from the slopes everywhere. Thirty species of trees are found here, including white basswood, yellow birch, tulip poplar, and hemlocks.

Yellow buckeye tree, Cove Hardwood Nature Trail.

The old-growth forest area starts in the upper reaches above the logging limit, where the forest has never been altered.

Many of the trees have lived a long time, and are really big.

This venerable giant, a 150 year old yellow buckeye, stands 100 feet tall.

Unlike the disturbed forests we are used to, the understory below the widely spaced trees is wide open.

The ground is not, though. A riot of mosses, shade-adapted plants and those wonderful spring ephemerals carpet the soil.

The Forney Ridge Trail winds through a boreal spruce-fir forest.

I fell in love with another unique forest ecosystem we encountered a number of times, the boreal spruce-fir forest. This type of forest is found in the North Woods of Maine and Canada. So what’s it doing in the Southern Appalachians? Ice, ice, baby. During the glacial periods, the trees and plants of the far north migrated here ahead of the glaciers. They found a favorable climate in the high altitudes of the Smokies and stayed after the glaciers retreated.

Spruce-fir forest on the Forney Ridge Trail.

The loftiest slopes of Clingman’s Dome and other high peaks are draped in red spruce and Fraser firs. The day we trekked the Forney Ridge and Appalachian Trails, the woods were cloaked in a heavy mist. I felt we had entered a mysterious fairyland, softly decorated in deepest green and luscious auburn. Little dewdrops hung suspended from spruce needles. Mosses clung to both standing and fallen trees, while lichens coated the rocks.

Mist dripping from spruce needles.

Living and skeletal Fraser fir on Clingman’s Dome.

There is a sadness in the boreal woods, though.

Since the 1960s, the Fraser firs have been decimated by a non-native invasive insect known as the balsam woolly adelgid.

This nasty critter eats the sap of the tree while injecting a toxin that kills a tree in a few short years.

The forests are littered with the ghostly skeletons of dead Fraser firs. It is all too common to see numerous bare tree trunks standing amidst live firs.

What a shame it would be to lose these majestic trees altogether.

Fraser firs on Clingman’s Dome.

During our time in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I counted 25 different flower species that I was able to identify, and more that I couldn’t put a name to. We walked through southern woodlands, and forests more common to the far North.

We came to the Smokies for the mountains, but left awed by the wildflowers and the woods.

Spruce-fir forest along the Appalachian Trail.

Maybe our timing wasn’t so bad after all!

The Wild Edge

Opening eyes to the wonder around us

Tag Archives: Flowers Trees & Shrubs