Sep 18, 2023
Bluebead Lily Clintonia borealis Liliaceae
Photographs taken on June 19, 2023, at Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.
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Bluebead Lily Clintonia borealis Liliaceae
Photographs taken on June 19, 2023, at Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.
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Bluebead lily - Clintonia borealis
Despite an unsettled weather pattern yesterday, I managed to find a window for a hike on the Bald Knob Trail in Canaan Valley State Resort Park. The turbulent sky and wind made everything so much more vivid and dramatic. The trail starts at a tube park and ascends steeply to the rocky overlook on Bald Knob before winding gently to the south through a serene boreal forest on Cabin Mountain dominated by red spruce (Picea rubens), where the trail cuminates at a chair lift on the north face and a hang glider launch area with a sweeping view of the Red Creek Valley on the south face.
From top: Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea), one of the great spring wildflowers of Central Appalachia and a recent addition to my own native wildflower garden; black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa); early lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium pallidum); painted trillium (Trillium undulatum); Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense); American red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa subsp. pubens), distinguished from black elderberry by conical rather than flat flower clusters; wood anemone (Anemonoides quinquefolia); bluebead lily (Clintonia borealis), a beautiful forb "stranded" from the last ice age in disjunct populations along the Allegheny Front; green false hellebore (Veratrum viride); one of the biggest Eastern American toads (Anaxyrus americanus) I've ever come across; and a healthy patch of ramps (Allium tricoccum), a species in severe decline in many places.
Bald Knob Trail at Canaan Valley Resort State Park offers breathtaking panoramic views from two spruce-clad summits, Bald Knob and Weiss Knob. Bald Knob overlooks Canaan Valley to the west (top photos), while Weiss Knob overlooks the Red Creek Valley to the south. I take the manual route up the trail (a strenuous vertical climb of 800 to 900 feet in about half a mile) but you can also opt for the ski lift on Weiss Knob, when it's operating. This time of year, a walk through the red spruce forest on Weiss Knob is a real treat for wildflower nerds like me, with various beauties, such as yellow clintonia (Clintonia borealis), the gorgeous and delicate starflower (Lysimachia borealis), painted trillium (Trillium undulatum), Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense), and mountain-loving red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa), in bloom.
The photos above are from a trek to the summit of Bald Knob in Tucker County, West Virginia earlier today. Bald Knob Trail starts in Canaan Valley State Park and crosses into the Monongahela National Forest before returning to the state park. Many people avoid the steep ascent on foot and take a chair lift from the adjacent ski area instead. I manned up today and made the ascent by foot so I could beat the lazy tourists to the overlook.Â
From top: the view from Bald Knob toward Weiss Knob and the Canaan Valley State Park ski area; wild geranium (Geranium maculatum), a clumping woodland perennial with gorgeous violet-purple foliage and elegant, sharply-lobed foliage; minniebush (Menziesia pilosa), an Appalachian endemic with distinctive, white-tipped leaves; painted trillium (Trillium undulatum), which has a fondness for shady spots in the strongly-acidic soils of old forests; pink lady’s slipper (Cypripedium acaule), another lover of shady nooks and strongly-acidic soils; and the mysterious depths of the boreal forest at the summit, where Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) and yellow Clintonia (Clintonia borealis), also known as bluebead lily, form dense colonies in the rich humus.
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The red spruce forest straddling the spine of Spruce Mountain is truly an island in the sky - a bit of boreal forest stranded by the northward retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age. Red spruce forests once cloaked vast expanses of the higher elevations of the Central Appalachians but were largely logged out of existence by the early 20th Century. Today, the remnant forests are slowly making a comeback, although they will never be restored to their full historic range. We are fortunate to have them at all. A stroll through one of these high elevation forests is a surreal experience and reveals a surprising diversity of plants and animals, many uniquely adapted to live in the cool, acidic environment.
From top: Spring-fruiting Entoloma mushrooms, most likely Entoloma vernum, saprophytes that decompose organic matter for food; minniebush (Rhododendron pilosum), a blueberry-like shrub of the Central Appalachians that’s genetically closer to a rhododendron; black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa), a small, suckering shrub with blackish-purple berries and crimson-red leaves in the fall; yellow clintonia (Clintonia borealis), or bluebead lily, whose iridescent blue berries have the sheen of fine porcelain; pink lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium acaule), which clumps gregariously in the heath thickets on top of the mountain; the drop-dead gorgeous fringed polygala (Polygala paucifolia), also known as gaywings and flowering wintergreen, which for all the world looks like a dainty orchid but is actually a milkwort (Polygalaceae); and that lovely dwarf dogwood, bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), a perennial groundcover more at home in Maine and Nova Scotia than West Virginia.
The Highland Scenic Highway winds for 22 miles through some of the prettiest and wildest mountain country in Central Appalachia. Most of the drive from Richwood, West Virginia to the intersection with US Route 219 near Marlinton is through the Monongahela National Forest. I made my first spring pilgrimage up the highway yesterday to check out the marsh marigold at Cranberry Glades, now at peak bloom. But there are so many other wonderful places to visit, including Red Spruce Knob (top - to the left in the photo), the highest point along the highway. Early bloomers on the mountain include Allegheny serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis) and hobblebush viburnum (Viburnum lantanoides), also sometimes referred to as witch-hobble. Hobblebush was so named by old-timers because its wiry, tough roots often grow up through trails and impede travel. On top of the mountain, in the old red spruce forest, multitudes of yellow clintonia lily (Clintonia borealis), also known as bluebead lily, are pushing up and will start to bloom within the next couple weeks. I plan to travel back to the mountain around Memorial Day to check out the amazing wild lilies and orchids that are now coming in droves.
Blooming bluebead lily on the forest floor by USFWS/Southeast on Flickr.
Photo credit: G. Peeples/USFWS