Flowers Everywhere

BRDC Whitetop Mtn. wildflower walk participants.

“They’re everywhere!”

Over and over I heard various wildflower enthusiasts repeat this phrase as they viewed the unending masses of early spring blooms that decorated the forest floor on Sunday, May 1.

Twenty-three of us joined Blue Ridge Discovery Center’s hike along the segment of the Appalachian Trail from Virginia’s Whitetop Mountain to Elk Garden two and a half miles below.

The never-ending flowers we witnessed on the mountain created an artist’s mosaic of colors.

Frilly chartreuse green rose above deep night green. Bright magenta and dark burgundy pointed skyward above cushions of rounded, green triangles. Soft pink nestled against protecting boulders and fallen trees. Speckles of white winked throughout the rolling mountainside. Sunny, golden yellow outshined its creamy, buttery cousin. Brilliant blue randomly broke the mosaic.

My camera captured personal glimpses of what we saw.

We saw Dutchman's breeches and squirrel corn which are sometimes difficult to tell apart unless they grow near each other. Both of the flowers hang upside down on the flower stem. Think of the legs of the Dutchman's breeches as looking like those of a saddle-sore cowboy with pointed legs. His breeches have a yellow waistband. The top of the squirrel corn looks like the rounded top of a Valentine, and the whole bloom looks a bit like a baby's pacifier.

The fringed phacelia is listed as "imperiled" by the state of Virginia and is quite uncommon. It blooms in innumerable abundance on Whitetop Mountain.


The bright, hot pink blossoms of the wild geranium added a striking contrast to the white fringed phacelia.


Spring beauty is a dainty plant whose flowers are usually pale, but this one has lots of color.

The golden, yellow trout lilies, whether they grew as single plants or as part of large colonies, stood out on Whitetop Mountain.

The colors of various trillium blended with the other wildflowers.


We also saw many foam flowers, and their spikes swayed gently in the breeze.

As we continued down Whitetop Mountain to the end of our hike at Elk Garden, we saw what a difference elevation could have on bloom time. At the top, there had been no yellow mandarin blooms, but near Elk Garden the blooms had begun to unfurl.

Text and Photographs by Cecelia Butler Mathis

BRDC wildflower walk.

April 17, 2011
Those attending were:
Lee and Smadar Chaffee,

Cathy and Ernie Wheeler, and Treton and Gabriel,
Scott and Debby Jackson-Ricketts.
Guides: Cecelia Mathis and Carol Broderson.

The sunny Sunday after the raging storm of April 16 was high-season for spring wildflowers on Blue Ridge Discovery Center's first wildflower walk of the season. There were ten of us who shared our enthusiasm and curiosity in a free-flowing and lively exploration along a portion of the New River Trail State Park near Fries, Virginia.

As we walked the easy trail, we enjoyed a profusion of blooms and informally shared knowledge of edibility and medicinal uses, Latin names along with multiple common names, and other sites for some of the less common plants.

The first flowers observed were dandelions, whose uses are many. One of the participants talked about using the early leaves in salads and the golden heads to make wine. As we continued, we noted that the common blue violet, Viola sororia, is another plant with multiple food and medicinal uses. Other violets found along the trail were Viola canadensis, Canada violet, and a white violet, Viola blanda, or sweet white violet.

Dutchman's breeches and bloodroot were still blooming, and we were treated with early red fire pink and the first of the columbine flowers that often grew from crevices in the boulders that protruded from the hillside. There were also masses of early saxifrage, Saxifraga virginiencis, growing all along the rocks. We saw two species of chickweed and the two species of spring beauty, Claytonia virginica and the more distinctly petioled and colorful Claytonia caroliniana.

Two bright yellow blooms that one of the hikers scrambled down the hillside to photograph gave us the opportunity to discuss the plant's two common names, dogtooth violet and trout lily. We flipped through one of our wildflower books to discover that this speckled-leaf species, Erythronium americanum, a member of the Lily family, blooms near the beginning of trout season in many states. Consequently, trout lily is an apt name.

Cutleaf toothwort and yellow corydalis were common. The larger, purple-blooming form of the blue cohosh was standing tall on the side of the trail. The inconspicuous hooked buttercup was the only member of that varied family blooming on our walk. Ground ivy, garlic mustard, and pink to purple-blooming dead nettle were everywhere.

Even inconspicuous wildflowers did not escape us. For those willing to crawl on the ground, the bishop’s cap, Mitella diphylla, offered the sight of dainty, white blooms along its single stem. The fresh green leaves of wild ginger, Asarum canadense, hid the maroon flowers that peeped from the forest floor of dead leaves and moist soil.

A shady, damp hillside carpeted with the trillium known as wake robin led us into a discussion of this prominent, three-leafed, woodland wildflower. With the pollen intact, the blooms ranged from yellowish to mottled/stripped pink and the more numerous maroon burgundy. We debated whether these different hues of wake robins are different species. If you have thoughts or information on this issue, we invite you to leave comments below.

We examined the umbrella-shaped leaves of mayapples to find the buds that would soon open, and realized that blooms of Solomon’s seal, false Solomon's seal, and bellworts would also soon color the slopes above the old railroad bed.

If you enjoy wildflower explorations, please join our next walk on May 1 as we explore early spring in another part of the mountains. Write carol@ls.net for details.

Written by Carol Broderson and Cecelia Butler Mathis; photos by Scott Jackson-Ricketts

Wildflower Walk on the New River Trail

Wildflower Walk on New River Trail
Join us on April 16! See below for details.

Join us on the New River Trail on Saturday, April 16 at 9 A.M., sponsored by Blue Ridge Discovery Center.

Carol Broderson and Cecelia Mathis will lead the very easy, flat, five-mile walk. Carol is a Mt. Rogers Appalachian Trail Club volunteer, and she also works with the Trails to Every Classroom program. "What one of us doesn't know about wildflowers, the other one does," Carol says. Cecelia's passion is wildflower photography. She is currently working with two others on a project to identify and photograph the flora and fauna of the Matthews Historical Farm, and she is also a volunteer for the Blue Ridge Parkway. The 57-mile New River Trail, the state's most narrow park, is a showcase of early spring wildflowers: spring beauty, violets, trillium, Dutchmen's breeches, saxifrage and many others.
Email carol@ls.net or call 276 773-3513 before 7 P.M. to join this spring celebration. Bring lunch, water, raincoat.

A mistake leads to an unexpected insight

How often do we just muddle along without much clarity of thought? I found myself in this situation when I was returning from a very early breeding bird survey on one of Virginia's highest peaks (Whitetop) and noticed some interesting plants. One of these (see photo) was a mountain wood sorrel, which I mistakenly identified as a Spring beauty, since the flowers are similar (see photo). I realized that the leaves of wood sorrel are similar to those of a shamrock and thus completely unlike a Spring beauty, but discarded this thought. Later, several folks pointed out the error of my ways and I reflected on the similarity of these two flowers which are in completely separate families.

Generally when two plants or animals are quite similar there is a common origin and a close relationship. That is not the case here since wood sorrels (Oxalis) are in a distinctly different family from Spring beauty (Claytonia) which is a relative of purslane and portulaca. So why do the flowers look so similar? The most obvious explanation is that they have converged in structure and color due to similar function. So what do these flowers do? They propagate the species by producing seeds, usually by attracting pollinators. Since the color and form of flowers is closely matched to the type of pollinators, perhaps these two flowers are designed to attract similar insect pollinators? Aside from the color, one of the most distinctive aspects of these two flowers is the pattern of lines radiating from the center. What could be the purpose of such lines? The usual explanation is that they are guides to direct insects to the center of the flower. For example look at the third photo taken in our garden of a native bee (sweat or mason) in the flower of an yellow evening primrose which also has the radiating lines. Some geraniums also show distinct lines in the flowers. So this pattern is not uncommon in unrelated plants.

So why do insects need some help in finding the center of flowers? Flowers sometimes also have a dark throat patch (the so-called nectar guide) to provide an additional cue. Insects primarily use their compound eyes that may have good color vision (plus UV), but their acuity is not as good as ours. Thus they may depend on simple patterns and odor for flower recognition and orientation. It is apparent that flowers find it important to give their pollinators as much help as possible in locating the sources of nectar and pollen. This must facilitate the fertilization of flowers and thus speed the evolution of such adaptations in multiple lines of descent.

So let's resolve to pay a bit more attention out there and enjoy even more the fabulous array of diverse forms of flowers and attempt to fathom what their purposes are.

Bill Dunson
Galax, VA & Englewood, FL

Rowland Waterfall

Rowland Falls, Thomas Bridge, VA.

May 23, 2010

Mike and I found the falls today, looooong and winding road getting there! My goodness!...but, we did it, and we found the bleeding heart!!!!! I don't recall ever having seen them before in the wild so it was so very exciting for me. I wish my pictures were better (makes me want a better camera!)....the falls were wondrous...we took off our shoes and climbed around.

One thing that struck me was this saxifrage, by the falls. The light was doing a wonderful thing on the water droplets collecting on these teensy tiny translucent moss-like plants behind the saxifrage on the rocks. Mist off the falls was collecting on the tiny leaflets of the moss and magnifying and shining this electric green that just sparkled. I'll have to go back when I get that good camera. Mike tuned into pink on the massive rock wall across the falls and recognized there were lots of bleeding heart running in the cracks...we viewed those with binoculars.

2 Mystery Plants...Do you know?

1) Is this some kind of clubmoss? You said YES.

You have chimed in unanimously with:

Shining Clubmoss (Huperzia lucidula)

2) Could this be a type of Aster?? : ???

Four very knowledgable individuals have chimed in on this one, and consensus was not reached. The two ID's offered were:

1. Oxeye Daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum)
2. Robin’s Plantain (Erigeron pulchellus)

Do you have a guess? Or, is there not enough information in the photograph to allow for an accurate ID?

Detail:

Help with this ID!!!
What do you think these plants are?

***Please provide your best guess in the comments section below.

Grindstone Scream

You know you're in a wondrous place when you simply step out of your car and you need not move because it's all around. "Hear that ? Canada Warbler ? ". We haven't even made it to the trail from the parking area, and we've had a dozen or more reason's to stop and look. "This is going to take forever!", says one... "that's what we're here for !", says another.

Our location for the wildflower hike was in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area at Grindstone Campground, on May 2nd.We walked a designated 1/2 mile wildflower loop trail, at far end of camping area, on the north facing slope of Mount Rogers.

We were just past the bloom of Dutchman's Breeches, the very tail end of Squirrel Corn and Trout Lily's. Purple and Painted Trillium were abundant and delicate, along with Jack in the Pulpits, the smallest I've seen. This is a beautiful meandering trail through a deciduous forest, rhododendron thickets, large rock outcroppings, and a swift moving stream that the trail crossed twice with bridges. The upper reaches of the trail were moist where we found the largest abundance of plants. The excitement of our finds escalated with a "SCREAM!" at the discovery of a plant that one participant had been wanting to see. It was a rather inconspicuous plant amongst it's similar looking relatives, the Solomon's Seal, and Yellow Mandarin's . There were the delicate pink bells hanging beneath alternate leaves of the Rosy Twisted Stalk. The scream came, then the drop down to get a quick close look, resulted in getting stuck amongst rocks in an awkward position that she needed help out of ! Three of us sat a while to take it in.

We spent 2 hours covering 1/2 mile, could have spent much longer. All plants were not exactly identified, but we did our best, being the novices that we all are ! A few of us are left with a continuing study, via "google" and sharing findings near our homes of similar specimens, of the proper identification of the "Ground Cedar" and the " Ground Pine" .We intend on returning to the site to see if we can figure it out ! Enjoying the mystery!

The following is a list that was compiled while walking:

Canada Mayflower, Wild strawberry, Bluets, Solomon Seal, False Solomon Seal, Partridge Berry, Jack in the Pulpit, Sweet White Violet, Whirled Loosestrife, Purple Trillium, Painted Trillum, Groung Cedar, Ground Pine, Downy Yellow Violet, Wood Anemone, Foam Flower, False Hellebore, Large Flowered Bellwort, Blue Cohosh, Trout Lily, White Wake Robin, Squirrel corn, Mayapple, Spring Beauty, Mountain Lettuce, Rosy Twisted Stalk

-Jane Floyd

The May 1 Byrom Park Bioblitz, species noted by Team 10

The Central Virginia Blue Ridge has a new forest preserve on the way. On May 1, a large group of scientists and naturalists (60+) descended upon the area for a preliminary biological assessment. I was on team 10, and here are some of the things we saw.

-On the eastern flank of the Blue Ridge in Central Virginia
-Lat/long: 38.227902,-78.660403

-Elevation survey range (Trail E) 1270' -1850'

-Survey Team #10

Geology
-Catoctin Formation (Metabasalt)
-Charnockite
At site E-10, in the stream, there were large and beautiful specimens of microcrystaline quartz ranging from bright greens to deep reds. This very well could have been a material source for Native Americans.


Noteable Habitats
Wildflower meadow (E-1). This spot is unusual in that it is a bit of a flat area on the mountainside. The bedrock is the mafic and mineral rich Catoctin greenstone, probably adding to the diversity at the site. This habitat would be a good wildflower destination, particularly for its thick grove of showy orchis, but also for the dozen or so other wildflowers that are blooming there on May 1.



Mafic Boulder (E-2).

Wildflowers
The woods were full. Most of these were observed at site E-1, at the top of the E trail.


Indian Cucumber Root (not in bloom)
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Showy Orchis
False Solomon's Seal (budding)
Early Meadow Rue
Tall Meadow Rue
Perfoliate Bellwort
Wild Geranium
Pink Lady's Slipper (along E trail at elevation 1320 +/-)
Early Saxifrage
Puttyroot Orchid (***past bloom***). A reader more knowledgable than I pointed out that this plant flowers after the leaves die back! So, this plant was NOT past bloom.


Ferns
Common Polypody (growing on the giant mafic boulder, E-2)
Cut-leafed grape fern

Amphibians

American Toad
Northern Dusky Salamander
Seal Salamander
Southern Two-lined Salamander
Eastern Red-backed Salamander
White spotted Slimy Salamander
Eastern Newt, red eft stage


Mammal tracks
Bear scat
Bobcat urine...territory marker (pee -yhooo!). (At E-8)

Trees
Giant White pine (E-8) circ. 8', 5".
Giant Chestnut Oak (E-9) circ. 10', 6".
Groves of slippery elm, witch hazel, spicebush
A low elevation striped maple

Other
Canadian Owlet moth caterpillar (on the early meadow rue)
Gold Brown Rove Beetle (in the bear scat)

Spring Wildflowers, Mouth of Wilson, Va.

April 27

As you turn right onto Shady Shack Rd. (in Mouth of Wilson, Virginia), a right across the bridge at the old dam where parson's grist mill used to be... looking up you can see trillium, columbine, a white flower not identified, jack-in-the-pulpit, coming on fiddle head ferns and a host of other plants and flowers on the rocks and on the steep banks along Wilson Creek right before it opens up into the New River.

For all you flower lovers, all along the New River you can locate and identify a large variety of woodland wildflowers and plants. This should continue for at least another month.

-Michael wildflower

October 3 event, Celebrating the New River Plateau

Music on the Lawn at the Davis Bourne Inn: Celebrate the New River Plateau with Blue Ridge Discovery Center.

The Grayson area pilot chapter of BRDC got rolling on October 3, 2009 with an event in Independence, Virginia. We could not have asked for a better day for an event! ...Sunny and warm, a light breeze, music, wildflowers, trees, hikes, fish, insects, and food all in the outdoors under a beautiful canopy of walnut trees...and nobody got hit in the head with a walnut! The activities and conversations continued throughout the day and word of BRDC’s activity will undoubtedly spread.
We’d like to give a special thanks to the many volunteers that helped with this effort and thanks to you newcomers for participating in this celebration! We look forward to seeing how the Grayson Area Chapter of BRDC blossoms over the coming years!

Special thanks to our event partners:

Blue Ridge Birders, Grayson Landcare, Ellie Kirby and her band, Mountain Flower Lampshades, and the Davis-Bourne Inn

Sketch by Cindy Brown © 2009