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| Last Gray's lily of the season (6/26/2024) |
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| Seed capsules (7/6/2024) |
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| Same plant (2023) |
The big show on Elk Knob is over. Flame azalea bloomed June 6-20 and Gray's lilies June 8-26. These quickly dried up, and by the end of the month, pollinators were grazing on the drooping leftovers.
Turk's Cap lilies were in bloom through July, along with coneflowers and turtleheads and the relentless purple Angelica.
Elk Knob is one of the few places in the world where you can see Gray's lily. They are named for Harvard botanist Asa Gray, who happened to be on Roan Mountain when they bloomed in 1840.
My experience is that if you're a day early or a day late, you may miss them. These perennials are also ephemerals.
For the past three years, I've taken an informal census of the Gray's lilies on Elk Knob. This year, I found 17 plants and 18 blossoms (plus more than a dozen lilies that never blossomed). Last year, 10 plants and 17 blossoms. In 2022, I did not count plants but found 12 blossoms. These are just plants I find along the trail, plus a couple of off-trail locations that I know. I'm confident there are many more elsewhere on the mountain, but this sample gives me an indication that the population on Elk Knob is stable.
As perennials, Gray's lilies can be found in the same place year after year. Also, wildlife scatter the seed to new locations. We evidently lost one lily, which had six blossoms last year but did not reappear in 2024. It was in the midst of the blighted beech forest, so it might have been crushed by a falling tree or nibbled by a deer.
Almost all these lilies were above 5,000 feet in elevation. There is one outlier at 4,600 feet, but it is too close to the trail and lost its bud to a broken stem for the second year in a row.
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| June 2024 was unusually cool and dry, though we were in the clouds on 6/17. |
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| Seed capsule from the above flower (7/23/2024, later mowed down by trail workers) |
Elk Knob is a mile-high mountain in Watauga County, North Carolina, just 15 miles from my doorstep in Boone. It's been a state park since 2003, and for several years in my 50s I volunteered to help build the hiking trail to the summit. I try to hike at least once a month, often after work on summer evenings.
The masthead of this blog shows the sun rising over Elk Knob, with a photo taken from adjacent Snake Mountain.
In 2024, my 70th year, my goal is to "hike my age"—70 trips to the summit. I was on pace to make it until Hurricane Helene struck and closed the state park for six weeks. In December, I hit 62, but me and the mountain were under the weather for the rest of my 70th year.
This goal put me on the trail several times a week, so to keep the trips from getting tedious, I given them a purpose—this wildflower journal. I'm no authority on wildflowers, just learning on the way. I'll welcome your comments and corrections
There's plenty of material up there for a wildflower Bible, with Jack in the pulpit, lilies bowing their heads in prayer, monkshood, Angelica, Solomon's Seal, and Hellebores.
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| Flame azalea starts orange, but tardy blossoms are often yellow. (6/15/2024) |
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| These flame azalea would bloom on the first day of summer but withered within three days. (6/20/2024) |
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| Turk's Cap Lily (7/12/2024), mile 0.2. A larger patch of these lilies is just past milepost 1.5. |
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Pink turtleheads (7/27/2024, just past milepost 1.25)
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| Marsh Woundwort (7/14/2024, milepost 1.8) |
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| Purple Angelica (7/12/2024). These are the dominant summer plants on Elk Knob and attract yellow jackets. I know that bees can be intoxicated by the nectar of Filmy Angelica. The bees I've encountered on Elk Knob have never been aggressive. |
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| Bee Balm (7/6/2024, milepost 1.1, off trail). This is the first time I've ever seen bee balm on the upper reaches of Elk Knob. I discovered another path below the trail at 0.85 miles. I'm told that it is more common near the backcountry campground, which is in the same drainage as these plants. |
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| Oswego Tea, a fragrant variety of Bee Balm (7/14/2024) |
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| Red Elderberry (6/24/2024, 0.75 miles) |
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| Vasevine (Clematis Viorna), 6/26/2024, 1.85 miles. |
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| Spiderwort (6/24/2024). |
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Dead beech trees (5/2024). Elk Knob seems to be "going bald," as a blight has killed the gnarled beech trees on the summit. I'm concerned about how the azaleas and Gray's lilies will adapt. If you're looking for a science project, here's your prompt.
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| Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) (6/10/2024, 0.3 miles). These mostly disappeared by late June. |
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| Jack in the Pulpit berries (7/27/2024) |
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Jack in the Pulpit (5/26/2024) I found dozens of stalks in late May, including two on the summit that were later mowed down by maintenance workers. These seem to grow in pairs. The name comes straight from the Church of England, where medieval preachers used a roofed pulpit to improve acoustics.
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Wake Robin Trillium (trillium erectum) first appeared 5/1/2024, mostly on the north side of the mountain. By mid-May it was prevalent along the trail almost to the summit. Blossoms faded by end of May.
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Blueberry blossoms as the trail approaches the summit (5/13/2024)
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Lesser purple-fringed wild orchid (platanthera psychodes) (6/08/2024, 0.35 miles). Two weeks later, someone cut this flower, but there are several others along the summit trail.
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| Sedges form a distinctive understory in these Amphibolite mountains like Elk Knob are distinguished by their grassy understories. My app (PictureThis) says that this lawn, 0.65 miles up the trail, is Pennsylvania sedge. "Sedges have edges, rushes are round, Grasses have nodes all the way to the ground." Parts of Elk Knob were once pasture. Like any lawn, Elk Knob also has dandelions. |
 | White Trillium (trillium grandiflorum) were first seen May 1 on the lower half-mile of the trail. By mid-May, there was another patch blooming near the summit (5/19/2024)
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 | | White Trillium fades into pink (5/26/2024) |
 | | Wild Geranium (geranium maculatum) appeared near the summit in mid-May about the same time the White Trillium were turning pink (5/26/2024). |
 | Spring Beauties (Claytonia virginica) are trustworthy prophets of spring. By April 15, they covered the understory up to the 1.25 mile marker, only to disappear when the sedges emerged in May.
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Viburnum (Wayfaring Tree, or Hobblebush) also ushers in the seasons, as it is one of the first blossoms of spring and also the first to show fall colors. In the spring, it will remind flatlanders of dogwood, which I have never seen on Elk Knob. (4/15/2024)
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| Viburnum berries (7/27/2024) |
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| In August of 2023, this hobblebush rolled out the red carpet to welcome me back to the mountain, five days after I had two stents placed in my heart. After a few cold nights in June 2024, I found one already changing to fall colors. |
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Trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) are among the first spring wildflowers on Elk Knob (4/15/2024). They are in the same family (Liliaceae) as the jewels of Elk Knob: Gray's lily (Lilium grayi) and Turk's Cap lily (Lilium michauxii), In those taxonomic names, you may recognize tributes to pioneering botanists Andre Michaux (1746-1802) and Asa Gray (1810-1888). |
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| 5/2/2024: Trout lilies cascade down a hillside |
2023
Gray's lily usually appears in June around the summit, though I have seen it earlier around the 0.6-mile mark. Because it is so rare, I keep an informal census. This isn't comprehensive--just the ones I can find along the trail and bush-whacking the summit bald.
2023: 17 blossoms.
2022: 12 blossoms.
PLEASE: Do not pick or try to transplant. These rare plants grow only on a few mile-high peaks in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
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2023: Note the ghostly beech trees in the background. This prolific plant did not sprout in 2024.
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Turk's Cap lilies (Lilium superbum) (7/30/2023)
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