Heartleaf Foamflower – Native Plant of the Day 01/07/2024
Photo from 04/11/2008. Location: The Pocket, Walker County, Ga.
More photos / info at the Tiarella cordifolia detail page.
Heartleaf Foamflower – Tiarella cordifolia
Clayton Webster, leader of the Over the Hill Hiking Group (OHHG), contacted me a couple of days ago with an invitation to join their group on their visit to The Pocket, so even though it had only been a few days, I went on down there to meet up with this great group. We covered The Pocket very thoroughly, visited the Martin Davis house, and took a drive over to visit the Blue Hole area of Pigeon Mountain. The day was a success, not only because of the great group, but also I managed to find several species that I missed on Saturday.
The Over the Hill Hiking Group “Better Half”
It had only been 5 days since we were last at The Pocket, but I ran across some published information about the particular subspecies of Trout Lily at that location a couple of days ago, and I wanted photographs of the identifying characteristics. And it was another beautiful day today, so I headed down there in the early afternoon. I counted 33 species blooming, naturally mostly the same as five days earlier. I also made a run around to the east side of Pigeon Mountain.
Purple Phacelia, Fernleaf Phacelia – Phacelia bipinnatifida
I’ve been out of town a couple of times since my last report – over 2 weeks since then – so I didn’t know what I’d find at The Pocket when I headed down there today. But it was plenty, and well worth the trip. I counted 41 species blooming. While Purple Phacelia may be the most prolific bloomer right now, the highlight for me was the beautiful, near-peak of the Wild Hyacinth. (Click here for all Pocket status reports.)
Wild Hyacinth – Camassia scilloides
Another hiatus from The Pocket of almost 2 weeks. Repeating from the last report – “Even more species are blooming now than two weeks ago.” This time I counted 40 species blooming, including one I don’t recall ever seeing down there before – Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata.) But the show is the massive display of Bent White Trillium (Trillium flexipes) – nearly every plant I saw had an open blossom, and the hillside was covered with them in many places.
Bent White Trillium – Trillium flexipes
It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I made it down to The Pocket – my apologies for the paucity of status updates this year. Even more species (38) are blooming now than two weeks ago (28), even though we’ve lost, or nearly lost, a few. I only saw a single Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) bloom, Harbinger-of-Spring is gone, Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) has completed its bloom, there are only a few Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) still blooming, Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) are essentially gone, and I couldn’t find the single Pennywort (Obolaria virginica) I saw two weeks ago.
The only remaining Dutchman’s Breeches flowers I could find.
This is a great time for a visit to The Pocket. (See end of this post for my guess on 4/10 status.) On Thursday, 4/3/2014, my wife and I walked up the Pocket Loop Trail, and then went back down to the parking area to meet up with a homeschool group who had invited me to join them for their visit to help identify the flowers they saw. We walked the Shirley Miller boardwalk and extension trail up to the falls with this great group of moms and their children. Several of the “signature species” are still blooming – Virginia Bluebell, Wood (Celandine) Poppy, Dutchman’s Breeches, and all three of the Pocket’s three Trillium species are blooming right now. 35 of the 55 species on my current version of the checklist are blooming right now.
Eastern Red Columbine – Aquilegia canadensis
We also ran into Clayton Webster and some more of the Over the Hill Hiking Group that I met last week. We had a nice visit exchanging information on what to look for blooming – they were coming from where we were going, and vice versa…
For the rest of the story…
It was a cloudy and dreary day today, following a lot of rain yesterday and last night, but Cindy and I made a quick run down to The Pocket at Pigeon Mountain again today to keep from being cooped up in the house another day. We were glad we did – the yellow and blue are out – Bluebells and Wood Poppies are blooming!
Virginia Bluebells – Mertensia virginica
Read on for the rest of the list, and a few more photos. Click on the photos for larger images, and then “back” to return to this page.
Purple Phacelia, Fernleaf Phacelia – Phacelia bipinnatifida
I wasn’t planning on going down to The Pocket this weekend, but my wife had other plans for Sunday, so she suggested that I do something to take advantage of the beautiful day, so I headed down there shortly after getting home from church. In addition to walking the boardwalk and the trail up to the falls, I did a little back country walking above the bluff north of the horse trail. Wildflowers are abundant; here is my report, and a couple of photos taken off the beaten path in The Pocket at Pigeon Mountain.
The Phacelia are blooming. There is a Phacelia in the field to the right as you walk down to the boardwalk; they are blooming along the boardwalk and all the way up to the falls. The photo above was taken up on the top of the north bluff.
This is Leap Day. For this once-every-four-years day, I thought that rather than the normal Native Plant of the Day (#NPOD on Twitter) I’d post a few native plants from and a report on the early spring status of the wildflowers at one of Georgia’s premier wildflower locations, The Pocket at Pigeon Mountain. As things worked out, Feb 27 was the day available to make the short trek down to that part of Walker County.
It was a beautiful day. When my wife and I headed down to The Pocket on Monday, Feb 27, 2012, we considered both the beautiful day and the time we were able to spend together a blessing from God. We also expected to find wildflowers, since we’ve had very little real winter and quite a warm February. However, we had no idea!
Bloodroot – Sanguinaria canadensis at The Pocket at Pigeon Mountain
