Today’s post was written by Hugh Nourse. Don Hunter’s
album of ramble photos is here.

Today 23 ramblers met at the Arbor at
8:30AM, where Rosemary read a discussion of the colors yellow and green.

Today’s
reading: Rosemary contributed a poem called Yellow; you can
hear the author, Ken Nordine, reading it himself here

Today’s
route:
Our route today was through the International Garden to the Purple Trail.  Down the Purple Trail to the Orange
Trail.  Left on the Orange Trail to the
Heath Bluff.  The return was up the
Orange Trail to the bridge to the Flower Garden, and through the Gardens to the
Visitor Center.

The first stop was the American South
Garden where we marveled at the variety of colors

A purple spiderwort

exhibited by the Virginia
spiderwort (pink, purple, blue, and white). The yellow coreopsis a provided a
nice contrast to these colors.  Lyre leaf
sage that we saw blooming two weeks ago had finished blooming.  The wild white indigo was still hanging on.

After crossing the Flower Bridge we
stopped at the bottle brush buckeye which had not advanced beyond where it was
two weeks ago.  Still just in bud.  In the Asian section of the Garden we saw the
Korean dogwood in full bloom.  A

Korean dogwood

little
farther on was a Deutzia cultivar.  That
was interesting because  a Deutzia Carol
and I saw last week along a nature trail in Montreat, NC had escaped from
cultivation.

In the American Indian Garden we noticed
that the black cohosh was beginning to extend its top stem which later will
bear a raceme of white flowers.  Nearby
was a patch of mayapples that had finished blooming and sported “apples.”

Mountain Laurel on the Heath Bluff trail

Mountain Laurel blossoms

 

Rattlesnake weed

Maple leaf viburnum

Galax

 

Sweet Shrub

We rushed along the the Purple Trail to
get to the primary goal today, the Heath Bluff. 
We discussed the reason for its different flora.  The bluff is rocky, steep, facing west, and
gets extra light because of the steepness of the cliff.  The soil is extremely acidic.  As a result the community of the bluff includes
lots of mountain laurel  and rattlesnake
weed.  With everyone searching we found
several more unusual plants for the Piedmont: 
maple leaf viburnum, galax, and sweet shrub.  Everyone was impressed by the extent of the
mountain laurel.  We scrambled along the
top of the bluff for the entire extent of the mountain laurel presence. What a
smashing display!  We could tell that
many of the flowers had been visited by pollinators because their anthers had
sprung up from the sides of the petals to cover the pollinators with pollen.

We climbed to the top of the bluff where
some mysterious piles of rocks, maybe 30 in number, are arranged in a
circle.  Mark Williams, Anne Shenk’s
husband, an archeologist, believes these might represent an Indian ceremonial
site of some kind.  The rock jutting into
the river might have been a marker along the river for this site.  Lance said that similar rock piles were found
on his parents’ property.  Piedmont
streams flow east to the ocean.  In some
cases curves of the rivers cause them to flow west for a short distance  instead of east.  These, it is thought, were special places for
sacred sites.  Gilles Allard, a geologist,
thinks they were just the clearing of fields by pioneer farmers, but this
particular site does not appear conducive to farming.  At this point Lee told about a book spoofing
archeologists by suggesting what they would think of a motel site a thousand
years from now.

On the way back down Don found hearts a’
bustin’ in full bloom.

Hearts a’ bustin’

After the wonderful adventure along the
bluff we headed up the Orange Trail to the bridge to the Flower Garden.  Along the way we did see examples of
rattlesnake fern.

As we entered the Woodland Walk in the
Flower Garden, the cheerful yellow flowers of green and gold urged us on.  Beside them was deerberry, which is in the
blueberry family.  It

Deerberry flower

gets its scientific
name from the extension of the stamens beyond the petals of the bell-like
flower.  Crossing the bridge over the dry
creek we discussed the good behavior of the native wisteria growing here in
contrast to invasive Chinese wisteria. 
It was in full bloom with lovely flower clusters similar to the Chinese
version, but not as long.

Many retired to Donderos for
refreshment.  Thank goodness it was open
again after last week’s closing for the annual ball preparations.

Hugh

SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:

Common Name	Scientific Name
Virginia spiderwort	Tradescantia virginiana
Coreopsis	Coreopsis sp.
White false indigo	Baptisia alba
Bottlebrush buckeye	Aesculus parviflora
Korean dogwood	Cornus kousa
Black cohosh	Actea racemosa
Mayapple	Podophyllum peltatum
Mapleleaf viburnum	Viburnum acerifolium
Galax	Galax urceolata
Hearts a bustin	Euonymus americanus
Sweet shrub	Calycanthus floridus
Mountain laurel	Kalmia latifolia
Rattlesnake weed	Hieracium venosum
Long leaf summer bluet	Houstonia longifolia
American wisteria	Wisteria frutescens
Green-and-gold	Chrysogonum virginianum
Deerberry	Vaccinium stamineum