Flowers on the Appalachian Trail

The author, Iris Murdock once wrote: “Persons from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” I recalled these words as I remember the strange and beautiful flowers we saw on the Appalachian Trail.

One weird flower was the Doll’s Eye. We came upon it growing on the rocky bank above a stream. We scrambled over the small creek and up a steep bank off the A. T. for a closer look. It was a cool October day and we had taken a 7 mile very strenuous hike with a varied terrain when we came upon this site. It was almost spooky to see white round “eyes” with a black dot in the middle staring from tall stalks. All agreed this flower was appropriately named.

We saw the most beautiful flowers on our Spring hikes before the deciduous woods came into full leaf. Many of the fragile flowers of April were gone by the time the trees shade the forest floor.

Once when hiking we were overwhelmed with the most beautiful delicate fragrance but could see no flowers to explain this. On closer examination we discovered the Trailing Arbutus, creeping across the ground and over exposed rocks. The blossoms were so tiny we had not seen them at first. But these small pink blossoms were the source that perfumed the air.

One Spring flower I love is the Blood Root. It is one of the first flowers to appear—a delicate fragile flower about 4” tall whose dainty white blossoms follow the sun and close into tight pods at night. What makes it particularly interesting is the red sap of the roots. Indian tribes used this sap as decorative paint. I can imagine vivid red smears on the faces of Indian warriors.

According to our fellow hiking Botanist the most unusual flower we saw was the Fringed Orchid. It was June and our leader knew just where to take us to find this flower. It was 51/2 miles off the A. T. We had been hiking from Thunder Ridge to Petit Gap when we saw, beside a small pond, one small perfect Fringed Orchid. Not being an orchid fan I could not appreciate this spectacular find as much as I did the startling beauty of one tall Turks-head Lily looking out of place in a grassy nearby meadow. These two flowers stood out for their singular bloom but most flowers we saw grew in abundance.

The largest masses of flowers were the Virginia Bluebells and many types and colors of the three leaf Trillium. My favorite Trillium is the red Wake Robin. Isn’t that a wonderful, provocative name to herald a Spring flower? As I wrote last week we once counted over 200 Ladies Slippers. The profusion of flowers was impressive.

Wild flowers seem to have their own personalities. We saw the orange/red Touch-Me-Nots who would shyly shrivel up if touched, and the bold Purple Thistle who dared you to touch their sharp, piercing bloom.

The names of the wild flowers intrigued me. Some had ugly names: Rattlesnake Weed, Fly Poison, Horse balm, Goat’s Beard, Vetch and Viper Bugloss. Others had lovely names: Clintonia, Wood Bettany, wild Lily-of-the-Valley, Bluebells, Blazing Stars, Columbine, Nodding Ladies Tresses and Sun Drops. There is probably a story with each name.

Each Season had its own flowers, unique and beautiful—tiny wild flowers in the Spring; abundant masses of flowers and ferns in the Summer; colorful leaves and berries and tall weedy flowers like Joe Pye Weed and Queen Anne’s Lace in the Fall and unusual mushroom and group cover like Creeping Cedar in the Winter.

Iris Murdock was correct. On the Appalachian Trail, surrounded by the profusion of flowers we often felt “wild with joy”.