Biota of the Blue Ridge: Red Trillium

…or Wake Robin, or Stinking Benjamin.

I have never been able to confirm the latter unflattering name for this lovely and common woodlands spring wildflower. Doesn’t stink to my nose. But then, we don’t all smell the same.

Or I should say, it is not true that if you’ve smelled one rose, everyone will agree with your that it is a pleasant experience.

“Smell this” I said on last week’s Rocky Knob excursion. The husband said “It smells like dirt.” The wife: “Garlic!”

It was garlic mustard, an invasive that unfortunately grows all along the trail that parallels the parkway. He couldn’t. She could. There’s a genetic variability perhaps greater for our sense of smell than for hearing or vision. Or taste via the taste buds, too? Are you a smeller or a non-smeller?

I used to play this game using common liverwort that grows commonly on rocks near our streams in SW Virginia. What do you smell, I’d ask.

Some: dirt. Others: “wax lips!” Try it for yourself.

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