Our cars carry us along the Blue Ridge Parkway rather often, Â that 400-mile-long national park being the eastern-southern border of Floyd County.
But our cars also require us, from time to time, to visit the parkway because that is where our auto-mechanic has his palatial garage not far from Tuggle’s Gap.
And it was on just such a “car trip” a few days ago that, stopping at Rake’s Mill Pond overlook, these summer whites beckoned a closer look.
First is the tall spires of Culver’s Root.
Like so many Appalachian Mountain plants (though this one seems to be a prairie native) it has a history of medicinal uses that you can read about at wikipedia.
And the second white…
This plant is–well, I thought I knew but turns out I was wrong. And I did not pay attention to the leaves, since this level of detail would have had me down in the much at the edge of the mill pond.
So for now, this is “tall white unknown lily from Rake’s Mill Pond.” This is driving me sorta crazy to not know. Not sure when the next parkway road trip will be, but hoping it does not require ordering more Subaru parts.
And that I finally become reacquainted with this once-familiar plant that is not, after all, fly poison.
I am always interested in beautiful flowering plants that spring up naturally along roads and streams. They always looks healthy, and seem to belong there. I’m trying to establish a ‘drift’ of such plants on a cliff below my garden. More news about that in the spring, after I see whether or not it was successful!
It bugged me when I learned I had misidentified the second tall white lily. And while doing something totally unrelated, I said aloud “Veratrum.” What was that, anyway? Sure enough, I searched and found the image, and realize that if I’d bothered to look at the leaves, I’d have recognized “False Hellebore” growing in its usual habitat of wetland margins–along Rakes Mill Pond. Mystery solved! And I know you are as relieved as I am! Right?