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Monday, April 26, 2010

Wildwood Flowers

High atop Point Mountain in Randolph county, West Virginia, a sprinkling of white along the roadside attracted my attention as we traveled through this weekend. We allowed time this trip for me to take some photos as we were on our way home. Here are a few of them:

The white mingled with yellow on closer inspection.
A little blue and hints of purple mixed into the palette.


Trout lilies, golden ragwort not yet in bloom, tiny violets and a white flower I have not yet found a name for mingled in the mountain meadow to create a picture worthy of Monet.


Trout lily is what I call this shy yellow flower, but I have also saw one website refer to it as dogtooth violet. Its leaves are speckled and more lily-like than they are like those of violets to my mind.


So pretty! I found them once or twice on Joe's Run, but on this mountain their abundance feels like gluttony for the wildflower seeker.

I do not know this flower; I want to call it celandine for some reason, but I am not at sure why. It spread in carpets through the woods. Do you know its name?

I found another favorite, bloodroot, in large patches too, comfortably mingling with the other small plants in the mountain's thin rocky soil.


Along a rocky roadside by a stream, much further down the mountain, I noticed this blue-green fern. I not only took a photo but also dug my fingers into the loose soil and took a couple home. I think they're bleeding heart, but I'm not sure. Do you think I just transplanted a pernicious weed? It's lovely and I hope it's something worth keeping in my garden.

In the streambed between river-smoothed rocks, I noticed a tiny seedling. Mary-cut-her-thumb! My friend John Mullins told me about this edible wild green, but I had never seen it in real life until now. I left this one alone--it does not grow in my area, apparently, so I left it in its native habitat and hoped the next flood would not carry it away.

At home, this little guy is long gone, but in the higher mountains they are about one month behind us seasonally so coltsfoot was still in full bloom. I wanted to stop and pick some of the raspberry leaves to dry for winter teas, but time was getting on so I passed them by.



10 comments:

  1. Hey Granny Sue!

    Thanks for taking us along on your wildflower picture taking trip! All of the flowers are just so beautiful!

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  2. I enjoyed being along for the ride too, Sue. I love wild flowers, an inheritance from my mother. I know May Apple, Dutchmen's Britches and your Bloodroot. I am not familiar with the rest. I do know wild Columbine and Sweet William and Blue Bells. Our Sweet William was beautiful in the timber this past weekend, with the Columbine just beginning to bloom.

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  3. It's lovely to see all the wildflowers beginning to bloom isn't it? Our woods are full of celandine, wood anenomes and wood sorrel at the moment with the first hints of blue from the bluebells. Marvellous time of year.

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  4. Thank you for these pictures. I would like to share them with my cousins if you don't mind. Our Gt Gt Gt Grandmother, Rachel Sharp Griffin, is buried on this mountain. Her daughter, Margaret, who would have been some generation of gt aunt of mine, came over the mountains from Pocahontas Co. to attend early Methodist church activities, and married one of those Hamrick boys. Hamricks are all over Point Mountain still. I would love to travel those roads.

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  5. What it would be like to see spring in all parts of the world! The flowers everywhere are probably lovely. My mother often spoke of the beautiful spring flowers in England, Rowan.

    DGranna, tell me where your ancestors are buried and I will take photos of the graves for you when we are through there again. You are right--Hamricks are everywhere. I have a photo of a memorial to the early settlers, and I will post it later today so you can see if any of your people are on it. Please feel free to share any photos you like with your family. I'm glad to know I can provide that connection to home.

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  6. The plant I didn't know-Nance, you are right, it's Dutchman's Breeches. Nicely settled into my garden now.

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  7. These wildflowers are so pretty!

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  8. And I bet you've got some beauties in your neck of the woods, BW--I would love to get down there to explore and see the wild plants in the bayou environment.

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  9. I call the unknown white flower Queen's Cup, have it in our woods in Idaho. Along with tons of Dogtooth Violet or Glacier Lilies, which is their other name. Batsy

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  10. I don't have any of those flowers down here.
    But I remember some of them from WV.

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