Two fantastic Spring wildflower sites in northwest Georgia — 2019-03-27

Without the help of two of my Georgia friends, Alan Cressler and Henning von Schmeling, I never would have found two really fantastic wildflower sites in northwest Georgia. They had visited and photographed wildflowers at these two sites three days before Walter Ezell and I made our very long (almost 14 hours) day trip. Because Spring ephemerals are quite short-lived, I was hoping there would still be something for us to photograph.

The first site we visited is a nature preserve in Floyd County near Rome, Georgia. It is a “typical”, rich cove habitat, underlaid with limestone and with very little over-story cover. Because we arrived several days later than Alan and Henning, a couple of the species Alan had photographed had already bloomed out, but there were several species still in bloom. The main one for me was Dicentra cucullaria or Dutchman’s Breeches. It gets its common name from the shape of the flower which resembles a pair of inflated trousers (presumably of the type that Dutch men used to wear) hanging upside down. This is a species which is found in only one county of my home state of South Carolina, so I was excited to be able to see and photograph it:

Dutchman’s Breeches

Here are a couple more of these beauties:

About 3 feet (1 meter) away were the last of the blooming Erythronium americanum or Yellow Trout Lilies. This species is much larger than the Erythronium umbilicatum or Dimpled Trout Lily which I had recently photographed in the upstate of South Carolina:

Scattered among all the other wildflowers, were hundreds of the paper-white flowers of Anemonella (formerly Thalictrum) thalictroides or Rue Anemone:

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a touch of purple. It was Phacelia bipinnatifida or Purple Phacelila, just beginning to flower:

Up the hill a bit was another patch of purple. This was Phlox divaricata or Wild Blue Phlox. In fact, there were several nice-sized clumps of this beauty:

More white flowers in the hundreds meant the star-shaped flowers of the very common, Stellaria pubera or Giant Chickweed. As I have mentioned before, each the flowers does not have 10 petals, but it actually has only 5 petals, but they are bifurcated:

There were lots of Trillium (not sure which species) at this site, but they were still in tight bud. Same held true for the Podophyllum peltatum or Mayapple.

However, there was one more shrubby plant in full bloom at this site, and it held a strange visitor. The plant is Caulophyllum thalictroides or Blue cohosh, and the critter is Alypia octomaculata or Eight-spotted Forester moth:

It had taken us more than three hours to get to this spot, what with the horrible traffic around Atlanta, and we had spent a couple of hours searching the area for the best wildflowers to photograph, so it was time to move on to our next and last destination: a very out-of-the-way spot in the Chattahoochee National Forest, north of Rome.

After some starts and stops, we finally made it to a clearing in the woods where I parked my truck. The location was in the middle of a pine forest just next to a stream. It would make a great campsite for someone who just wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

We unpacked our camera gear from the truck and peered over a nearby, sloping bluff to find a whole hillside covered with Spring wildflowers! What a sight! The first species I recognized was Sanguinaria canadensis or Bloodroot. Its bright white flowers shone like little beacons in the forest leaf litter:

Their petals drop after a couple of days, and then there is nothing left of their beauty but the leaves. I was glad we caught them at their peak.

Moving down the bluff a bit, I spotted the flowers of a lone Primula (formerly Dodecatheon) meadia or Eastern Shooting Star:

There were dozens of these plants scattered around, but they were still in tight bud.

Next, I came across Polemonium reptans or Jacob’s Ladder. It was the first time I had encountered this species although I’ve seen pictures and read about it. Its bright blue, bell-like flowers were very pleasing to see and photograph:

Sprinkled among all of the other wildflowers were numerous specimens of Cardamine dissecta or Forkleaf Toothwort. This was also a new species for me, having seen only the Cardamine laciniata or Cutleaf Toothwort. However the leaves of Cardamine dissecta were very finely “dissected”, and it was my pleasure to see it for the first time:

Another beautiful little plant that is associated with Spring is Claytonia virginica or Spring Beauty. The flowers are rather small, but up close, their beauty shines:

I even stumbled across one whose flower petals were doubled!:

Having finished with the flowers on the bluff, Walter and I began our hike down a narrow trail to the creek where Alan and Henning had found a huge population of Mertensia virginica or Virginia Bluebells. But before we got there, we began to see another wildflower that I was familiar with, the star-shaped flowers of Nothoscordum bivalve or Crow Poison, aka False Garlic:

After walking along the creek bank and slightly into the wooded flood plain, we began to spot the Virginia Bluebells. Each of the banks of all the little tributaries that feed the creek were choked with Virginia Bluebells! I wish I could have captured the moment, but wide-angle shots of such a sight just do not do justice to the spectacle. Here are a few shots of some of the groups of plants we saw:

This sight stretched for several hundred yards (meters) along the creek’s flood plain. In fact, I do not know exactly far it went because we stopped looking after a while and began to search out some color varieties. I had seen and photographed Virginia Bluebells a few years ago, but I don’t remember seeing a wide variety of color forms. Here, though, we began to see pink ones, several variations on white color forms, and almost any other combination you could imagine. Here is just a smattering of what was available to us:

First, the typical blue color form:

Next, blue mixed with pink:

Then, pink mixed with blue:

And finally, my favorite, the “white” color forms:

Walter and I eventually finished up at this spectacular site, fatigued and famished. Although I was tired from all of the up-hill and down-hill hiking as well as squatting and bending over to do my photography, I really didn’t feel it so much because of the great time we had out in the field. I want to thank Alan and Henning again for doing the leg-work to locate these wonderful sites.

We packed our gear and headed back out to civilization, meaning a great Mexican restaurant that we had passed on our way out to the last site. Finally, we made it home way after dark, where I downloaded all of my images in preparation for today’s blog post — imprinting onto my brain all the beauty that we had witnessed and giving me a very good night’s sleep.

There is more to come in the near future, so stay tuned…

–Jim