Spring Beauty

Sydney and I went over to the Blue Hole on the east side of Pigeon Mountain today.  I’d been there about 10 or 11 years ago, but hadn’t been back.  I’d seen some references on the Internet that the only known Twinleaf population in Georgia was in the area, and I hoped to stumble onto it.  The wildflowers on that side of the mountain, however, are well behind those on the west side at The Pocket, so after an enjoyable couple of small hikes – where we did see some toothwort blooming – we headed across the mountain to The Pocket.   Jackpot!

We’d had some rain and cold weather since my last trip to The Pocket, but yesterday and today were quite warm – 76 degrees when we arrived at The Pocket around 3 PM.   Sydney wanted to look over the trail out of the north end of the parking lot, the one that heads over to Bluebird Gap.  As we crossed the creek on that trail, we saw hundreds of Hepatica.  Around behind a tree I spotted a glimpse of yellow, and there was a cluster of Bloodroot.  Of course, there were Trailing Trillium everywhere, but Sydney wanted to walk up the creek, so we carefully picked our way though the Trillium, and started rock-hopping up the creek. 

I photographed some Wood Betony and Toothwort, and the Hepatica.  I glanced up the stream about 50′, and spotted some yellow blossoms.  As I got closer, I found that it was a group of three or four Trout Lilies in bloom – my first of the season!  Three weeks after spotting the first leaves, the beautiful flowers were there. 

After photographing the Trout Lilies, Sydney and I headed over to the Shirley Miller Wildflower Trail.  The Virginia Bluebell are coming along, we spotted one of them which had a single blossom fully open, but there are MANY plant clusters pink buds.  I also spotted a single Wood Poppy with buds forming, so they’ll be along in a week or so.   Toothwort and Hepatica were everywhere, with Hepatica continuing to be the predominant flower.  

On 2/21 I had spotted a bud that I didn’t recognize.  There were many more clusters of them on my 3/1 trip.  Last week I dug into my books and decided that it must be Spring Beauty; I knew there were a lot of those around The Pocket, but hadn’t seen it in pre-flower form before.  This trip confirmed that – the Spring Beauties were everywhere along the trail, becoming more and more prevalent as we approached the falls. 

Also as we approached the falls, clusters of Trout Lilies showed up.  I was fortunate enough to find several of them which didn’t have the flowers open yet, so I was able to photograph them in that form as well. 

Back along the end of the boardwalk, the foliage of the Dutchman’s Breeches were showing up everywhere; on the single plant I spotted last weekend there were now buds forming, so those first Dutchman’s Breeches of the spring will be blooming in The Pocket soon.