Spring Wildflowers, part one

early spring flowers

It is a great blessing to love where you live. We have lived in Waynesville for 34 years now and I continually think about how fortunate we are to live in an area of such natural beauty and abundance. Our county contains a portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, long stretches of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a portion of the Appalachian Trail, the Shining Rock and Middle Prong Wilderness Areas, and extensive sections of national forest. Our higher elevations contain Southern Appalachian temperate rainforest, an ecosystem  of unusually high biodiversity. There are lots of different trees and plants and fungi and bugs, very few of which I can identify.  I especially love the spring wildflowers. From late March to early June, depending on the elevation, areas of our forests support a wonderful array of wildflowers, some in large patches impossible to miss; others rare and solitary, always a treat to find.

Here is  a collection of wildflower photos I have taken over several years. This post has pictures of the earlier appearing wildflowers. A later post will have pictures of flowers that appear later in the spring. It’s spring!  Go outside.

a sure sign of spring, a bloodroot emerging from the winter leaf cover
the bloodroot’s single flower extends on its stalk through the single leaf
three bloodroots
a bloodroot flower in front of yellow trillium that has not yet opened
violets are common early spring flowers
yellow violets, a botanist might be more specific
common blue violet
larkspur, maybe. Better ask somebody else.
Dutchman’s Britches
Dutchman’s Britches is also called “little boy plant” due to its trouser legs.
Squirrel corn is closely related to Dutchman’s Britches. It can be called “little girl plant” as it is has bloomers rather than trousers.
spring beauties
spring beauties
trout lily

Trilliums are the most reconizable of our spring wildflowers; everybody likes them. They all have three leaves and a single, central flower. My guidebook says there are eight species in Western North Carolina.

trillium about to bloom
yellow trillium about to bloom
purple toadshade
white erect trillium

sometimes the flowers hang below the leaves
erect trillium comes with maroon petals also
painted trillium
large-flowered trillium
large-flowered trillium
large-flowered trillium may grow in large colonies

That is all for now. My next post will feature later spring wildflowers.

7 Comments

  3. Beautiful photos which I will send on to some of those (our kids) who have left the area, probably forever.

  4. Excellent shots of these beautiful flowers Craig- nicely done. That is indeed a larkspur, genus Delphinium. I forgot how wonderful spring is in the deciduous forest understory.

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