Celebrating National Wildflower Week - Blue Ridge Beauties

In the spirit of National Wildflower Week (May 4 - May 12, 2013), we've expanded our range a bit to encompass a previously unreported early May excursion to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. In between soccer games, we slipped up the Parkway to a couple of our favorite hiking trails where we ran into these cool wildflowers. 

Large flowered trillium, Trillium grandiflorum

Star Chickweed, or Great Chickweed, Stellaria pubera

The five individual petals are divided so that the five rays of the "star" appear to be ten.

More trillium, narrower petals, but still Trillium grandiflorum?

Painted trillium, Trillium undulatum

Rare pinkshell azalea, Rhodedendron vaseyi

Wild oats, Uvularia sessilifolia

More painted trillium

Golden ragwort, a spring-blooming aster

This crayfish is not a wildflower, but it was on the prowl in the crystal clear waters of the stream alongside which we found the trillium. Don't be fooled by the red exoskeleton, this critter's very much alive, and the water is about as far from boiling as you can get without icing over!

More pinkshell Azalea, a rare treat!

Cool leaves...

 

Dwarf Wild Iris

Wild Strawberries, with a single violet

Wild strawberry, up close...

Mystery...look it up and tell me!

Serviceberry (shadbush) in bloom, if you'd like some fruit, come back in June!

Sessileleaf Bellwort, Wild Oats

More wild strawberries (white flowers, 3 leaflets), growing alongside dwarf cinquefoil (yellow flowers, five leaflets), commonly mistaken for wild strawberries!

Apple tree, growing wild in a wooded mountain meadow.

More apple blossoms...

Wake Robin or Red trillium, Trillium erectus

Trillium erectus with spider, beware!

So ends our tribute to early May wildflowers (and big red crayfish) of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Boone/Blowing Rock area.

Happy Wildflower Week!

Dwarf Wild Iris, Spring is Here!

Growing up wild in the Sandhills of North Carolina, nature marked the passage of my days almost as well as the Johnsonville Ruritan Club's birthday calendar which hung inside the kitchen cabinet beside the stove. 

And the wild iris was my favorite springtime marker.  

Just beyond the limits of the mowed yard, on the margin of a small copse of trees, consisting as best I can recall of one magnificent longleaf pine, a hickory or two, a couple of scrub oaks and a small blackgum tree, there was a small community of six or eight tiny iris plants. Their leaves were present nearly year-round, but only in the early spring, usually around Easter, did the blossoms appear. 

And oh, what blossoms!

Dwarf wild iris, dwarf violet iris or vernal iris; by any name, its emergence from the sandy soil of the southern pines is a magical springtime treat, and undeniable evidence of spring's arrival.

This particular individual resides at the margin of the woods near my brother's home in Harnett county, just a couple of miles from those bold little bloomers that announced the springs of my childhood.

On a trip to the NC mountains last spring, I was delighted to discover an upland community of dwarf irises which are very similar in appearance to my old friends from the Sandhills. Spreading by way of rhizomes, the miniature montane iris formed much denser colonies than those I encountered in my youth.

The blossoms showed some slight variation as well, but these diminutive heralds trumpeted the same glad tidings as their lowland brethren had throughout the years of my childhood...

The long, cold nights of winter have passed, and still we live! Witness the glory of spring's rebirth! Spring is here! Rejoice!