Spring Wildflowers on the AT

The wildflowers on this hike are absolutely amazing. Imagine you are actually in a children’s Easter book where the grass is super green and the flowers are everywhere. That is what about half of my walk has been so far!

Here’s an introduction to some of the flowers I’ve seen on the trail. I’m going to organize them by color since that is easiest.

By far and away the showiest one I’ve seen is the trillium.

The only blue wildflower I’ve seen so far is vinca, or periwinkle. It was growing up the slope next to Lake Watauga. It was just starting to bloom, but in two weeks or so the entire ground there should be vivid purplish-blue.

Apparently not many spring wildflowers are yellow! There are a few, though. These yellow flowers are an unusual kind of butter cup, daffodils, a yellow violet that has some fancy name (but I’m just calling it a yellow violet), and of course dandelions. (I didn’t bother to take a picture of dandelions.)

But then there are the white wildflowers. They are all small and they grow everywhere. In fact when I look at the green ground cover of the forest floor, very little of it is grass. Most of that green  cover is actually wildflowers, with tiny white flowers. Unfortunately when I try to take a picture of the whole effect, the white doesn’t show up on the camera, so I’ve just taken close-ups.

The problem with these white wildflowers is there are so amazingly many of them. There are ones with four petals and five petals and six petals, there are ones that are spiky, there are ones that never seem to blossom but just sit with a really pretty bud, and a few super-showy ones, like bloodroot.

If you have any thoughts as to what any of these are, please let me know! I would love to know, but I don’t have the resources to really identify them while on trail.