Countdown to the Mount Rogers Naturalist Rally 50th Anniversary!

We are looking forward to our Mount Rogers Naturalist Rally here at the Blue Ridge Discovery Center, but this year is particularly special. It is the 50th Anniversary of the Spring Naturalist Rally; a weekend that has enriched the highlands of Southwest Virginia for decades, long before it has thrived and grown since its convergence with the Blue Ridge Discovery Center. 

Great White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Today marks the one-month countdown until our exciting weekend of exploring, discovering, and sharing the wonders of our wild and comforting corner of the Blue Ridge. Be sure to PRE-ORDER our limited edition MRNR t-shirts. Each shirt features some of the mountain-dwelling species that draw nature enthusiasts to the region year after year, including the Magnolia Warbler, Great White Trillium, and the Blue Ridge Dusky Salamander. The last day to ensure you’ll have a shirt is this Friday, April 12th. 

THE RALLY will have a variety of field trips including classics like birding, wildflowers, geology, and the iconic Mount Rogers Hike, as well as some newer favorite topics including a tour of the American Chestnut Foundation’s farm, a caving expedition, wildlife rehabilitation, and a weather balloon launch! Check out the registration page for a full list of our programs. Join us Friday night for dinner, music and evening programs. Saturday brings various hikes and kids programs throughout the day with breakfast, lunch and dinner by reservation only. Then our featured speaker, Kevin Hamed, will be discussing native salamanders, what makes them special, and some of their unique conservation stories. Stick around for more nighttime activities as well as Sunday morning hikes. It’s a full weekend of fun for the whole family!

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

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

Wildflowers at Grindstone Campground

• A list of wildflowers seen:

• Painted Trillium

• Purple Trillium

• White Anemone

• Squirrel Corn

• Yellow Violet

• White Violet

• Purple Violet

• Trout Lily

• Ramps, thousands of them