Wildflowers: Spring has Sprung

So we’re at the tail end of the spring wildflower blooming, even at the higher elevations. This particular image was taken on the flanks of Dolly Sods at about 4000 feet.

This particular flower is NOT toothwort as I’d labeled it while hastily shooting this beautiful stand of it while my bored non-photographer non-botanically-crazed traveling companion waited in the car.

This I know by the common name “turkey mustard” (Cardamine diphylla) and remember eating its leaves on a ham sandwich once, with good results.

This flower bloomed two weeks earlier at our elevation (2100 feet) so it was nice to see things I’d missed here, still going strong up top.

Go to Flickr for the larger version of the image.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. Spring came so early in California this year, that when we took the same itinerary at the same time as last year, we saw virtullay no spring flowers. last year they were at their peak, the whole way up the western Sierras.