Wild about wildflowers

Western North Carolina’s annual spring wildflower show is among the most magnificent in the world, a natural blooming that continues for many months along the trails and tucked under forest canopies.

Mid-March to early May is considered the best time for viewing the early arrival of violets, trilliums, jack-in-the-pulpits, bloodroot, trout lily, anemone and dwarf crested iris.

Next come the native shrubs — rhododendron, azaleas, mountain laurel, hydrangea and viburnum  — which light up the landscape with blooms of orange, pink, red, purple and white.

Some of the best places to head for a great natural display are in the Pink Beds area of the Pisgah National Forest and Max Patch section of the Appalachian Trail. Max Patch is worth the trip no matter what time of year, as the grassy bald provides 360-degree views.

For a leisurely drive that offers a wealth of blooming activity, hit the Blue Ridge Parkway. The ups and downs of the Parkway and the surrounding mountains have a significant effect on rainfall. Upper elevations, often shrouded in the blue haze for which these mountains are famous, record average annual rainfalls of as much as 80 inches, while lower elevations get closer to 50 inches.

These variations in temperature and moisture result in a diversity in plant life that is one of the most distinctive features of the southern Appalachian Mountains. Perhaps this is what drew botanist William Bartram to the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1775. Bartram was America’s first native-born naturalist/artist and the first author in the modern genre of writers who portrayed nature through personal experience as well as scientific observation. Bartram’s studies were published in 1791 as Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia. East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulees, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. The book now is simply titled Bartram’s Travels. 

Frenchman André Michaux followed Bartram, first visiting the region in 1776 and returning in 1802 with an appointment from the French government to collect plants for the royal gardens. It is said that Michaux collected 2,500 plants, shrubs, and trees from Western North Carolina.

Collecting native flora of any kind is prohibited in the national parks and national forest land, but visits to local nurseries may help provide a piece of the Western North Carolina landscape to take home such as rhododendrons and azaleas.

 

 

 

Bloom Reports

The N.C. Arboretum in Asheville maintains a useful Web site with links profiling the most prominent wildflowers in bloom each week, and clues as to where they can be found on the 434-acre Arboretum grounds, which includes several walking trails. www.ncarboretum.org/Horticulture/Wildflowers/Wildflower_test.html

A bloom report for the Blue Ridge Parkway can be found on the Blue Ridge Parkway Association’s Web site. Note that the Parkway runs for 469 miles. Blooming species’ location is indicated by milemarker. Milepost 0 is at Rockfish Gap in Virginia. Milepost 469 is at the southern end of the Parkway near Cherokee in North Carolina. www.blueridgeparkway.org/bloom.htm

One of Many

The All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, a project of Discover Life in America (DLIA), seeks to inventory the estimated 100,000 species of living organisms in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The project will develop checklists, reports, maps, databases, and natural history profiles that describe the biology of this rich landscape.

Since the project began in 1998, the ATBI has resulted in the discovery of 5,207 species new to the GSMNP and 874 species new to science. The 5,000th discovery for the ATBI was the velvet leaf blueberry, identified on May 20, 2006, during an ATBI Field Day at the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center at Purchase Knob in North Carolina. The ATBI maintains an online database of organisms found in the park, which includes alphabetical organization of local wildflowers. Whether your interest is in hunting for plantae or protozoa, sorting specimens or snapping shots of scientists at work, the ATBI has ways to get involved. For more information, visit www.dlia.org/atbi/index.html.