#clintonia

  pretty sure when these bloom I feel like forest spirits are near by, get chills every time.

Photographs taken on June 19, 2023, at Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.

On Saturday, I hiked several trails along the Highland Scenic Highway I missed during my earlier trip a few weeks ago. There are simply too many to tackle in an entire spring or summer, let alone one weekend. One of the shorter but more rewarding hikes (about 3 miles) is the Red Spruce Knob Trail, which winds up the namesake mountain (top photo to left) to a true boreal forest, replete with a maturing, moss-encrusted red spruce forest, on the summit. The forest has a dark, almost primordial feel to it, with only the occasional barking of a red squirrel or a flitting bird in the spruce saplings to keep you company. And as an added bonus, the view from the top is quite beautiful. I just missed peak bloom for the yellow clintonia (Clintonia borealis), or blue-bead lily, which carpets the forest floor wherever enough sunlight can get through, along with Canada mayflower, mountain wood sorrel, and Indian cucumber-root.  A few plants still held their delicate yellow flowers, but most had gone to fruit - by late summer, the berries will turn an iridescent shade of blue, glossy like fine porcelain.

Bluebead lily - Clintonia borealis

Bride's Bonnet, Clintonia uniflora (by me)

I’ve only seen this species in acidic mesic woodland. I feel like this this species has open forest growth requirements for light as well but i’ve found the species hiding out under ferns many times at Red River Gorge. Auxier ridge has many examples of small clustered populations. These leaves are relatively fleshy and remind me of an intermediate texture between midland shooting star and showy orchis. Some people say that it reminds them of the basil rosette associated with wild columbo.

Take a walk with me, Part 1. I preach endlessly about the incredible beauty of Appalachia’s temperate hardwood forests, especially in late spring when the new greens of the ferns and understory plants take on an intense, almost iridescent quality. This morning, as I hiked the Scott Run Loop Trail in Coopers Rock State Forest, the forest was blindingly beautiful and full of life; warblers, thrushes, and towhees flitted like ghosts through the branches and underbrush and chipmunks darted elusively into impossible hiding places. This is my way of sharing the journey, although photos alone can never do justice to this place. Among the many wonders: mapleleaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium); white clintonia (Clintonia umbellulata),also known as speckled wood lily; late-blooming Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum); deerberry (Vaccinium stamineum); and Virginia grape fern (Botrypus virginianum), also known as rattlesnake fern. 

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.