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wildflowers

Wildflowers Part III: How Many of These Appalachian Wildflowers Have You Found?

March 12, 2019

I’m amazed at the quantity and variety of wildflowers I’ve seen since moving to Western North Carolina ten years ago! It has become a game to see how many different kinds I can find . . . and remember. Because of the hundreds of wildflower species in our region, I’ll leave it up to you to acquire reference books and field guides, apps, and to search websites. To get you started, here are a few of the most common—and most interesting—wildflowers that I’ve seen that you’re likely to discover, too.

Spring ephemerals at low to mid-range elevations
• Trillium (Trillium spp.) Three-leaved whorl and three-petal flower distinguish Trilliums. Our mountains harbor at least 10 species with fun common names such Wake Robin, Sweet Betsy, Nodding trillium, Toadshade trillium, and Painted trillium. Trilliums come in an array of blossom colors—white, pink, red, or yellow; solid-colored or speckled leaves; and blossoms that stand erect above the leaf whorl or hang below.
Habitat: Rich, moist woods and coves

Wake Robin Trillium

• Wood anemone (Anemone quinquefolia). The flower “petals” are sepals colored white or pink. Wood anemones and the rue anemones (Thalictrum thalictroides [= Anemonella thalictroides]) are very similar, differing in the shape of their leaves and positioning of blossoms on their stems. Rue anemones are sometimes called windflower, because they produce little nectar, but lots of wind-blown pollen.
Habitat: Rich humus soil; open woods and thickets

Wood Anemone

Spring perennials found in a wide range of elevations
• Fire pink (Silene virginica). This wildflower’s scarlet-red five-petal blossoms—atop slender stems with narrow opposite leave—“pink” refers to the notched petals—“pinked” at their tips. Fire pink is at home on harsh, dry, rocky slopes, although it will grow in well-drained, moist soils and partial shade. Pollinators and hummingbirds love it. Songbirds eat the seeds.
Habitat: Dry, rocky slopes

Fire Pink

• Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum). Look under the large, umbrella-like leaves to find the mayapple blossom, a solitary one-inch flower hanging at the fork of two leaf stalks. Growing in large colonies about 18 inches tall, Mayapples produce an apple-like yellow fruit.
Habitat: Moist, hardwood forests

May Apple

Summer perennials
• Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis). Like North Carolina’s state bird, the wildflower is named for its resemblance to Roman Catholic cardinals’ clothing. Growing 3-5 feet tall, with erect flower spikes atop each stem, cardinal flowers open from the bottom of the spike to the top.
Habitat: Banks of streams; moist meadows and thickets; full sun to part shade
Elevation: Low to mid-range

Cardinal Flower

• Turk’s cap lily (Lilium superbum). This lily has up to two dozen orange-speckled flowers with backward-curving petals, looking like the caps ancient Turks wore. It can reach 9 feet tall! The smaller Carolina lily (L. michauxii)—North Carolina’s official wildflower—grows 2 to 3 feet tall. Both lilies have whorled leaves along their stems, but Turk’s cap has sharply pointed leaves—Carolina lily leaves taper to a blunt point.
Habitat: Moist woods, trailside thickets
Elevation: Wide range

Turk’s Cap Lily

Fall perennials
• Crane-fly orchid (Tipularia discolor). When this orchid blooms in late summer, with tiny whitish-brown blossoms along a 15-inch stalk, it has no leaves—but its distinctive, low-growing leaves emerge in autumn and persist until spring. Somewhat crinkly looking, their upper side is dull to shiny green, the underside is purple.
Habitat: Rich forest soils along slopes and streams
Elevation: Low to mid-range

Crane-Fly Orchid

• Blue wood aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium [= Aster cordifolius]). You’ll often spot these tiny blue flowers lighting up fall landscapes.
Habitat: Rich forests, shaded roadbanks
Elevation: Mid- to high-range

Blue Wood Aster

Unusual wildflowers
• Lady slipper (Cypripedium spp.). Discover this pink or yellow orchid, and you’ve found a jewel. The inch-long blossom looks like an inflated pouch or soft lady’s slipper. The pink lady slipper flowers on a stalk sitting above two large basal leaves. The yellow lady slipper has 3 to 5 leaves along the stalk. Their dust-like seeds require the right soil fungi to germinate. Never try to dig and transplant lady slippers! Enjoy them in their natural habitat.
Bloom time: April-June
Habitat: Dry to moist woods
Elevation: Low to mid-range

Lady Slipper

• Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). You have to look carefully to see the flower that pops up at the node of one or two leaves, each divided into three leaflets. Look for the hooded pulpit and Jack (or Jill!) standing inside. That’s right, this wildflower can produce male or female flowers, depending on the amount of resources stored in its corm (underground stem). The pulpit can be green, brownish-purple, striped, or mottled. If the plant produces a female flower, red berries appear in late summer when both Jill—and the pulpit—are gone!
Bloom time: March-June
Habitat: Moist woods; along creeks
Elevation: Wide range

Jack in the Pulpit

Article written by Beth Leonard, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

Stay tuned
Wildflowers Part IV discusses gardening with wildflowers.

Learn more
NC State Extension Plants
Photographs and searchable lists of wildflowers by common and scientific names.
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/category/wildflowers/4/?category=wildflowers&s=common_name

North Carolina Native Plant Society
Photographs and searchable lists of wildflowers by common and scientific names.
https://ncwildflower.org/search/results/1c9da2083d71b05c3799f539f48d2a5c/

Wildflowers of the United States
References, photographs, and searchable lists by state.
https://uswildflowers.com/stateref.php?State=NC

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Categories Wildflowers Tags Blue wood Aster, cardinal flower, Crane-fly orchid, Fire Pink, Jack in the Pulpit, Lady Slipper, May Apple, native plants, trillium, Turk's Cap Lily, wildflowers, Wood Anemone

Wildflowers Part II: Find, Identify, and Protect

March 11, 2019

Hike in the southern Appalachian Mountains, drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, or visit the Botanical Gardens at Asheville, or the North Carolina Arboretum and you’ll find wildflowers in bloom virtually year-round. As we discussed in Wildflowers Part I, hundreds of species make their homes in our unique mountain environment.

Gray’s Lily

Where to look
Some wildflowers are quite common and cover a wide range of elevations, like the many species in the Aster family. Others are very rare and endangered, such as Gray’s lily (Lilium grayi) and Rugel’s ragwort (Rugelia nudicaulis). While some wildflowers cling to rocky outcroppings, others prefer the nutrient-rich forest floor or a wet bank by a stream.

What to look for
There are some very unusual looking wildflowers: stiff gentian (Gentianella quinquefolia), with blossoms like Christmas tree bulbs, bear corn (Conopholis americana) that resembles a corncob more than a flower, and Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) that is easily mistaken for a fungus

Bear Corn

Stiff Gentian
Indian Pipe

Within a single genus, such as Trillium, you may find different species with blossoms in an assortment of colors—white, yellow, red, and multi-colored!

Trillium

The variety is almost endless. The fun is in the discovery.

Identifying characteristics
Botanists’ nomenclature for every plant part and shape enables them to identify and categorize plants—but paying attention to a few basic characteristics will help identify many wildflowers.

Habitat. The process of elimination begins with observing the plant’s habitat. It’s unlikely you’ll find a pink turtlehead (Chelone lyonii), whose natural home is seeps and stream banks, on a dry, rocky slope! Assess habitat according to sun/shade, wet/dry, open area/woodland, and elevation.

Flower. Consider color, number of petals, and blossom shape—single bloom or cluster; upward spike or drooping panicle; flat or rounded. Flowers can grow on different parts of the stem. Is the flower at the top of the stalk, growing from a joint between the leaf and the stem, or at ground level?

Leaf pattern or arrangement. Wildflowers’ leaves are also important to their identification. Leaves may be basal (growing at the base of the stem next to the ground), opposite (growing in pairs on either side of the stem), alternate (alternating on either side of the stem), or whorled (more than two leaves growing in a circle around the stem). Some plants have both basal and stem leaves; others flower with no leaves at all!

Leaf shape and margins. Basic leaf shapes are linear (long and narrow), lanceolate (lance-like), oblong, elliptical, ovate (egg-like), and cordate (heart-shaped). The margins or edges of the leaf may be smooth, serrated/toothed, or lobed/scalloped. A compound leaf may appear to be multiple leaves, but is a single leaf composed of several leaflets.

Consult a reference
Now it’s time to match the characteristics you’ve observed with a high-quality wildflower reference. One of my favorites, Wildflowers of the Smokies, includes color photos, plant descriptions, bloom time, and typical location. Plant and wildflower identification apps are available for smart phones—even if you don’t have a reference app, phones are great for taking pictures of wildflowers to look up later. Make note of wildflowers you observe, the place, and the date. As you expand your knowledge of wildflowers, you’ll become more adept at finding and identifying them.

Conserving wildflowers
With the establishment of state and national parks and forests in the 1930s, public appreciation and conservation of native plants and wildflowers began to take hold. Appalachian forests clear-cut for logging are recovering with government protection and help from conservation groups, but threats remain from non-native plants, insects, and diseases!

Native plants lose the competition with exotic kudzu, Japanese stiltgrass, princess tree, and privet. Woolly adelgids attacks native hemlocks and emerald ash borers threaten ash tree species and the American fringe tree. Anthracnose kills flowering dogwoods.

Humans who “over-love” our mountains pick or dig flowers, hike off-trail, and camp in undesignated areas. Poachers remove and sell conifer seedlings, perennials, and roots of the American ginseng plant.

In Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge Parkway, J. Anthony Alderman coins the Ten Commandments of Wildflower Conservation: “Thou shalt not pick, bend or break, trample, dig, poach, let pets run free, set fires, [or] alter the environment. Thou shalt enjoy and preserve and educate.”

Article by Beth Leonard, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

Stay tuned
Wildflowers Part III describes a few of the most common southern Appalachian wildflowers.
Wildflowers Part IV discusses gardening with wildflowers.

Learn more
Alderman, J. Anthony (1997). Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The University of North Carolina Press.

Spira, Timothy P. (2011). Wildflowers and Plant Communities of the Southern Appalachian Mountains & Piedmont. The University of North Carolina Press.

White, Peter (2000). Wildflowers of the Smokies. Great Smoky Mountains Association.

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Categories Wildflowers Tags Bear Corn, Conservation, Identify, Indian Pipe, native plants, Stiff Gentian, trillium, Turtlehead, wildflowers

Wildflowers Part I: Rich Variety in a Unique Environment

March 5, 2019

One of the joys of living among Western North Carolina’s mountains is discovering wildflowers—alone or in profusion: beside a hiking trail, along the roadside, or in an open meadow. Some 300 different wildflower species grow along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and 1,500 flowering trees, shrubs, and herbaceous species grace the Great Smoky Mountains, more than any other national park in North America!

spring bloomer, leaves resemble brook trout
Trout Lily

Are wildflowers native plants?
According to the North Carolina Extension Gardener Handbook: “Native plants are those species that evolved naturally in a region without any major change or improvement by humans. The term wildflower is often used to describe native plants, but may also refer to naturalized plants that are not indigenous to the region.”

People import exotic wildflowers and help them spread through landscape-altering activities such as mowing, farming, logging, and development. Nature—in the form of wind, floods, landslides, and fire, as well as birds, animals, and insects—also spread these alien plant species!

Why such wildflower diversity in the Appalachians?
The Appalachian Mountains provide a unique environment that offers an incredible variety of habitats to support our diverse wildflower population. Plants settle where the environmental conditions are best suited to their survival. And here in Western North Carolina, many different wildflower species have found their “ecological niche.”

Temperature and moisture. A wide range in elevation offers wildflowers a variety of temperatures and moisture levels. The Blue Ridge Parkway at its lowest point is 649 feet above sea level at the James River Visitor Center in Virginia and ascends to 6,684 feet at Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina—the highest point east of the Mississippi. This dramatic change in elevation creates several different climate zones ranging from warm to cool. Temperatures can vary as much as 20ºF in relatively short distances. The lower elevations have an average of 200 frost-free days each year, while higher elevations have only 100 frost-free days! The Appalachians receive abundant annual rainfall, but only an average of 50 to 55 inches at lower elevations, in contrast to 80 to 90 inches at higher elevations.

Aspect. The direction a slope faces and its shape (concave cove, convex hillside, or ridgeline) affects the amount of sunlight, rainfall, and wind protection that wildflowers receive. North-facing slopes are shady and cooler than sunnier south- and west-oriented slopes. A shady cove nestled between two mountains is moist, and cool, while a ridge exposed to the sun is hot and dry.

Soil. Soil conditions also influence which wildflowers take root. Sandstone and acidic bedrock are the predominant soil types in the southern Appalachians, but there are also areas of less acidic limestone soils rich in calcium. Evergreen and deciduous woodlands generate nutrient-rich organic matter on forest floors that supports many wildflowers.

Wildflower shows for all seasons
These environmental conditions not only determine where specific wildflower species thrive, they also determine when. Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), a native flowering understory tree, blooms in winter to late fall and into January. Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) begins flowering in January. The main wildflower shows debut in mid-March at lower elevations and in mid-May at higher elevations. Native flowering trees and shrubs (dogwood (Cornus florida), redbud (Cercis canadensis), rhododendrons (Rhododendron catawbiense and R. maximum), and flame azalea (Rhododendron austrinum) take center stage in April, May, and June. Summer brings ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium fistulosum), and black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) to roadsides and meadows. The final curtain call that signals season’s end comes late-October to mid-November when goldenrods (Solidago spp.) and asters (Aster spp.) abound.

self seeding annual, blooms summer to fall
Jewelweed
Grows to 10 feet tall
New York Ironweed

Fernleaved  phacelia (Phacelia bipinnatifida) germinates in fall to provide a leafy-green winter carpet before early spring flowering, while most wildflowers don’t leaf out until spring.

Phacelia in winter showing rosette of leaves

Ephemerals, like Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) and trillium (Trillium spp.), emerge in early spring well before trees leaf out and when they can take full advantage of sunlight reaching the forest floor. They flower, fruit, and die back all within a short two-month period. By May or June, the ephemerals have no leaves, stems, or above ground structures to signal the hiker of their existence. They go dormant and disappear below ground until the next spring.

Spring ephemeral
Dutchman’s breeches

Wherever you hike or drive in the Appalachians, you’ll find the wildflower display changes day to day and mile to mile. These jewels of the mountains await your discovery.

Article written by Beth Leonard, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

Stay tuned
Wildflowers Part II outlines identification characteristics and conservation efforts.
Wildflowers Part III describes a few of the most common southern Appalachian wildflowers.
Wildflowers Part IV discusses gardening with wildflowers.

Learn more
NC State Extension Plants
Photographs and searchable lists of wildflowers by common and scientific names.
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/category/wildflowers/4/?category=wildflowers&s=common_name

North Carolina Extension Gardener Handbook
Chapter 10 Herbaceous Ornamentals, Section IX. Wildflowers
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/10-herbaceous-ornamentals#section_heading_9171

 

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Categories Wildflowers Tags Black-eyed susan, dogwoods, Dutchman's breeches, Eastern redbud, ironweed, jewelweed, native plants, Phacelia, wildflowers, Witch Hazel

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