Chuck took us on a hunt for waterfalls.  In the process we saw lots of beautiful woods and wildflowers, as well as numerous  waterfalls and rocky streams.

Mike skipping stones

Mike

Chuck, Sara, and Guy Noir

Hemlock forest

View along the Blue Ridge Parkway

Golden Ragwort

There were lots of different violets in bloom.  There were at least 3 yellow ones, and numerous white and blue ones.  This is Round-leaved Violet.

Halberd-leaved Violet

Downy Yellow Violet

Small White Violet (I think)

Rhododendron forest

This waterfall was very tall, but hard to see through the trees.  In a week or two, it will be completely hidden by leaves.

Sara and Guy Noir

Mosses and violets

Another Blue Ridge Parkway view

Willow flower with ants

Squirrel Corn and Dutchman’s Breeches look very similar – they’re the same genus.  But the flowers are organized differently on the stem, and the individual flowers look slightly different.  Squirrel Corn flowers are heart shaped and in a cluster, and Dutchman’s Breeches look like pairs of pants hanging on a clothesline.

Squirrel Corn

Dutchman’s Breeches

Cut-leaved Toothwort

Golden Saxifrage – this has tiny greenish flowers with red stamens.  It’s unusual to find – it’s “endangered” in Kentucky, and only listed in a few counties in Tennessee.  It’s listed as rare in North Carolina, found in the mountain counties in hardwood seeps – places where water seeps up through the ground.  We saw this patch next to a wooded stream flowing around moss covered rocks.

This is called Red Trillium, but sometimes it can be white with a red center.

The white version

Toward the end of the week, the green on the trees was moving up the mountains.