Graveyard Fields/ Blue Ridge Mountains: The Great Maze (Non-Illinois post)

This was the midpoint of the Blue Ridge Mountains trip of June, 2015.   Graveyard Fields is a popular hiking area southeast of Asheville in the Pisgah National Forest.  As we got out of the parking lot, we walked down into a heath bald.

Heath balds are where various large members of the Heath plant family (Ericaceae) dominate over nutrient-poor, acidic soils.  In this region, rosebay rhododendrons (Rhododendron maximum) grew overhead.  It was cool, wet, and shaded beneath the thick evergreen leaves of the rhodies.

This is essentially what the interior of a heath bald looks like.  No wonder the local name for such a place is laurel hell.  It is an enormous maze of shrubbery.

 We reached a moderately sized creek with several rapids as the water essentially flowed over bedrock.  The entire area was tranquil and peaceful.  Fog hung in the air, but never quite descended and eventually cleared off.

Here is the same rapid from a different angle.  Evidently, this area must flood occasionally for the rocks to be so bare as they are.  

  Bluets (Houstonia spp.) lined the trail.  Also, this is an excellent picture to demonstrate why this area is known as Graveyard Fields.  Exposed tree roots and rocks were everywhere along the trail.  While I loved the area, this was certainly one of the more unpleasant trails I have hiked.

 In an acidic wet area, of course, clubmosses proliferated. This is likely Ground-pine or prickly tree-clubmoss ([Dendro]lycopodium dendroideum), a rare species even in the Appalachians.  Three species of this genus live in this area, and all of them are hard to tell apart.  All three of these species are also present in northeastern Illinois, especially in the upper Kankakee River Valley.

By contrast, here is one of the world's most common plants,  the Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum) a species found on every continent except Antartica.  In Central Illinois, it is present in the Sangamon River Valley.  Bracken is a pioneer species of partially-shaded moist acidic areas.  It is also highly toxic and is often regarded as a pest.

We stepped down the creek to view a waterfall.   Here , the well-worn bedrock met a jumble of boulders and formed a natural playground.

Unlike the portion of the creek above the waterfall, here more  brush closed in around the sides.  The heath bald was replaced by low forest.  Water wound its way through the maze of boulders.

We paused here for awhile to watch the sheets of water come cascading down.  The water was cool as this area is about five thousand feet in elevation.  It misted from both the waterfall and the overhead clouds, which threatened to rain at any time.

This area had a large amount of wildlife.  See if you can spot the crayfish's tail in the above picture.  Then I nearly stepped on an animal I had spent most of the trip looking for, as it sat happily along the gravel.  I assume it was happy.  We certainly were when we saw it.

This unknown lungless salamander species (Plethodon spp.) is one of dozens of species that can be found in the Southern Appalachians.  Many are restricted in range to a few mountaintops, as they live in the cool northern forests on top of the highest mountains.   This one, unusually, was out in the open.  It soon ran surprisingly fast into a nearby pool.  We let it be.  If anyone knows what species this is, please let me know.   It was dark grey to black with light sand-colored spots all over.

Yet another millipede, one of the five hundred species in the area,  crawled along the path as we continued our hike.  This was the longest hike of the trip, and we felt it as we went through shrub-covered meadows, dense northern hardwoods and heath balds.  Some sort of berry bushes (Rubus spp.) bloomed nearby. The area is home to  black bears, especially in the fall when berries ripen.  We saw no evidence of any bears, however, on our hike.  Then again, we are from Central Illinois, and perhaps we just didn't know what evidence of a bear would look like.

 The clouds opened briefly, and we saw the surrounding mountains, the tallest in all of eastern North America.  A few lone spruces grew out of the meadows.

The area used to be a spruce-fir forest, as grows on the surrounding mountains.  However, it was logged, and parts of it blew over in the early 1900s.  The stumps on their sides were said to resemble headstones, thus the name Graveyard Fields.  Then fires burned the stumps and soil, removing most of the forest.

Here is a patch of red spruce- Frasier fir forest on top of a nearby mountain.   A relic of a time when this area was far colder, these forests only grow above 5,500 feet in elevation.  In the 1950s. balsam woolly adegid, a closely related species to the hemlock woolly adelgid, killed off most of the Frasier Firs (Abies frasieri)  Between that and the fire, there is little chance of returning this area to spruce-fir forest.

Between meadows were several creeks.  This area was a maze of improvised trails and campsites as well, making it an area that was difficult to navigate.  We got lost several times.  Some sort of small trout species lives in the creeks, and in my attempts to photograph these shy fish, I nearly ended up in the creek with them.

It was a long hike over rough boulders. Apparently, in North Carolina terms, this is a moderate hike.  In Illinois terms, this is a very difficult hike.  I would hate to see a North Carolina difficult hike.  We finally reached the second waterfall, all having determined we would stick to visiting the first and lower  waterfall in the future.

This is actually about seventy feet tall,  In this area, as in the last, the rock is extremely hard and while there has been erosion, the rock still holds resistant to the water.

 A huge maze of boulders rested downstream, with small pools connected by rapids between the jumbled rocks.

I walked up closer to the waterfall.  In order to do so, you have to be careful, as the darker part of the rocks are full of slimy algae and you will slip if you try to walk on those.  I hopped from dry spot to dry spot, somehow not tripping.  This is my definition of a good time.  After a bit, we went back down, following the main creek at times.

 None of this was reminiscent of Illinois.

 We hiked through a couple miles of brush, spotting several new plants along the way.  This is dog-hobble (Leucanthoe fontanesiana), a  Southern Appalachian bush indicative of acidic soils. Its stems arch over the ground, giving the plant its name.  I had never seen it before this hike.

 All kinds of ferns grew along the trail, but most of them were familiar to me and I took no pictures.  However, the Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum) is always a pleasure to encounter.  These ferns are found around all edges of Illinois, but not in my specific area, sadly.  I assume Central Illinois lacks the moist acidic soil these ferns enjoy.

 As you can see, the terrain was mostly just shrubs, grasses and ferns, with the occasional bluets for color.  The creeks that ran through the area showed how the area had changed over time.

Underneath the shade of the heath bald again as we walked back into that area, I spotted a flower on the unknown Trillium species I had seen everywhere.

 The Appalachian specialty Painted Trillium (Trillium undulatum) is not found anywhere in Illinois, and I was lucky to see one just out of flower.  A few weeks before, this plant would have had a bright white flower with dark red interior markings.  It is the most attractive and hardest to grow Trillium species, and is often wild-collected.  For that reason, if you ever see Painted Trilliums for sale in a plant nursery, assume they were dug up in the wild and don't buy them.  You can see the ferns and clubmosses in the vicinity of the picture also.

This area was quite humid and the moss and lichens were everywhere, growing on top of each other such as in this picture.

This is essentially the sort of trail in the heath bald.  Here the roots and rocks had diminshed, to be replaced by mud and claustrophobia.

Rhododendrons bloomed all around us. These are the dominant plants on a heath bald, and as they are in the heath family, they give the area its name.  This area resembled the Linville Falls overlook trail as rosebay rhododendron blocked out most of the light.

 Here again is Goodyera pubescens, the Rattlesnake Plaintain orchid.  This area had the largest colonies of this plant I have seen.  Rattlesnake plantains, painted trilliums, mosses, clubmosses, galax, and a few scattered ferns were the only plants growing under the dense shade of the rosebay rhododendrons.

 Overhead, of course, the area was far more colorful as we got out of the maze above it and back in the parking lot.  You can see the short northern hardwood forest behind that grows around the creeks in this area.  We drove off along the Blue Ridge Parkway, on our way to Dupont State Forest.  We stopped several times for pictures.

 We climbed into the highest part of the Parkway, where it winds amongst spruce-fir forests.

 Even the dead Frasier firs like gray skeletons on the hillside could little distract from the stunning views.  We saw small white patches along the side of the road, and realized this was the remains of snow, even though it was June.  Where else in the American South will snow be found in June?

 To be fair, when I picture the South, this is nothing like it at all.  I believe the fir is on the left in the picture above, and the spruce is on the right.  We stopped near a large seep complex on the side of a mountain to eat our lunch.

I have no idea what most of these plants are.  I had heard of some carnivorous plants being present along seeps in the Blue Ridge mountains, but I saw none.

 Here is the seep from a different angle. On the other side of the road is an overlook, and a severe drop-off.  Looking down the road, we could see the boreal forest that grew above it.  This is as close to an alpine area as these mountains get. They are too warm to have a treeline.

Overall, this was one of the best vacations I have ever taken.  I someday will go back in early May to see the spring flowers in full bloom, but even when we went, the area was so diverse that it was spectacular.  This is the sort of place I want to work someday.  Hopefully, in a few years, North Carolina's natural department is hiring...

Linville Falls- Top of Falls and Plunge Basin Overlook: We're not in Illinois anymore... (Do I need to say non-Illinois?)

Linville Falls is perhaps one of the most famous attractions of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Located in the central western part of North Carolina,  Linville Falls is definitely worth visiting.  It is also the first place I encountered the flora of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

 To begin:  We arrived in the parking lot.  I had been seeing all kinds of flowering bushes, and my foolish assumption that everything in the area would be mostly out of flower (on spring break, as I refer to the last week of May in Illinois.  This is a time where most spring flowers cease and most summer flowers have not yet begun.)  Evidently, the azaleas and mountain laurels were in full bloom and we had arrived at a spectacular time to visit. The Linville River flowed by the parking lot, swollen with rain.  I had no idea that the Blue Ridge Mountains were so floristically diverse, but when I got out of the car, I was ecstatic.

Flame Azaleas (Rhododendron calendulaceum) bloomed in patches all around.  The bright orange flowers of this shrub, hitherto in my mind confined to the artificial landscapes of botanical gardens, looked stunning among the many hues of green in the dense forest.

There was only one plant showier than Flame Azaleas in the area, and that was Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia), a species whose profuse white flowers lit up the woods.  While I was correct in believing that the early spring ephemerals had died down, there were still plenty of flowers to see.  Furthermore, flowers were not the only residents of the woods, not by a long shot.

About five hundred species of millipedes live in these mountains, as do a third of the world's salamander species and  304 freshwater bivalves, or about a third of all freshwater bivalve species in the world.  (Freshwater bivalves are clams, mussels, et cetera.)  All of these indicate a huge amount of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems, especially the mussels.  Europe, by contrast, has twelve species of freshwater bivalve.  Additionally, about half of the world's trillium species can be found here, and about sixty different genera of plants have species present only in this area and eastern Asia's temperate forests.

Much of this is due to climate.  Most of the Blue Ridge mountains qualify as rainforest or nearly rainforest.  Furthermore, the mountains are tall enough and old enough to have a wide variety of rocks exposed and different layers of flora dependent on elevation.   This all contributes to a huge diversity of species.  This also means that naturalists should visit.

I spent most of the hike essentially spinning in a circle pointing and saying "OOH"  because there were so many new plants I had never seen before. Above is a Veronica species, and below is Galax (Galax urticifolia).

Is it bad that I had never seen a clubmoss species in the wild before this trip?  There are few if any clubmoss species in Central Illinois, as they prefer forests and rocky wet acidic places over dry, neutral to alkaline, 70% prairie Illinois.

And then I found ANOTHER ONE!

I had no idea this area was so full of life.  Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Blue Ridge Mountains is how little research I did on them before going there.  I am the sort of person who generally plans trips around this or that nature preserve and what plant is in that area.  Here, I had done virtually no research.  I knew some of the facts about salamanders, and had come to the area to look for them.  However, the entire forest is full of rocks, moss, undergrowth and wet leaves.  There is certainly plenty of cover to hide salamanders from people trampling through their territory.

I'm not even going to name the large fern species on the left.  If you have read the blog for awhile, you should be familiar with it.  If not, go read some of my old articles.  One fact I recently learned about that particular fern species is that it often grows on slopes and its dead fronds, lying close to the ground, help to retain the slope's leaves and dirt.   Look at this picture overall.  If I missed a dozen orchids, I would not be surprised, in such an area.  I count at least a dozen different species of plant in this small snapshot alone, and this was taken from only a couple feet away.

Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) a species common throughout Central Illinois, still bloomed in these mountains.  Often in these mountains, specimens such as this are more green and white, while the more western specimens such as the ones in Illinois  seem to be more green, white, and brown mixed.  However, there are plenty of color forms in both areas.

All this time, we had been walking along the Linville River, flowing swiftly on its way to the falls.  Then I spotted a plant, one of several hundred thousand on my "Must See Before I Die" list.

This is a strange member of the Lily Family, Medola virginica, Indian Cucumber-root.  It seems to be at least partially dependent on fungal mycorrhzae to grow.  See my Dupont State Forest article for details on that topic.  At any rate, this is a plant that has only been found once in Illinois, in Starved Rock State Park.  It was discovered there in the 1930s and has never been seen in Illinois since.  Therfore, it is a species in the upper couple thousand of my "Must See Before I Die" list.  The growth habit of this species is something quite unique.  It has a lower whorl of leaves, an upper triangle of leaves, and small green six-petaled flowers dangling under the upper triangle.  Overall, this is a curious specimen of the deep Appalachian woods, something wild and strange to be contemplated on a quiet spring day.

The trail, as benefits one of its popularity, is wide and paved with gravel.  I had seen nearby roads that were narrower.  We hiked up to the falls on this easy, if occasionally steep, terrain.

Aren't Linville Falls spectacular?  I'm kidding.  This is a large rapid or small waterfall directly above the real Linville Falls.  Directly behind me in this picture are the falls and gorge.

The rapids were ferocious, reminding me of the section by the Merced River along the bottom of the Vernal Falls Trail in Yosemite National Park in California in the United States in North America on Earth, the fourth planet from the Sun, in the Milky Way galaxy, in the Universe.  I never know how far to go with addresses.

Mountain laurels bloomed all over the gorge, dusting it in white.

Just below this gap in the rock is Linville Falls.  We could hear the waterfall, but we couldn't see it.  It is probably the second most famous falls  in Eastern North America after Niagara Falls.  It seems terrible of me to have not known anything at all about it before we hiked there.  On second thought, I had heard the name, seen a few photos, and known it was in North Carolina.  That was it.

A large slug oozed up a small tree nearby.  This was also an excellent area for slugs and snails, thanks to the constant moisture.

Huge mountain laurels overhung the trail border.  The whole area  above the falls was a basin surrounded by ledges and short cliffs of rock.

This was the single most healthy maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) that I had ever seen.

Here is a closer picture of the small falls I showed earlier.  Apparently, about half a dozen species of pine tree, seen on the upper right, also grow in the Blue Ridges.  I had no idea of that, either.  One fact I have learned since is that more tree species grow in southern Illinois than in all of Europe, and a heck of a lot more tree species than in Southern Illinois grow in the Blue Ridges.  Evidently, Europe has received the short end of the stick when it comes to biodiversity.  What else do you expect from such an urban continent?

Above is an example of why Mountain Laurels are such spectacular shrubs.  This one, one of the largest, is essentially a tree.

Galax is a common plant in these moist areas, and it was blooming everywhere we went.

While large snails are always a fun find in the woods, the sheer diversity of mosses, lichens, and liverworts is staggering.  I believe in one of the gorges in the nearby area, about two hundred species of moss endemic, or only found in, that gorge.  It might have been twenty.  I like the bigger number better, however, and do remember that it started with a two and ended in zero.  Likely, the number in question was 2,000,000 endemic mosses,

One of the many large and colorful millipedes.  I highly recommend not touching or grabbing any of them, especially the colorful ones. They can release a very long-lasting  and smelly chemical as a deterrent.  I saw a nearly identical species in Muir Woods in California in... I had better stop now.

Here is a good view of both clubmosses and the overall look of the woods.  They were even more beautiful in real life.  Nature always is.

 We came back from the top of the falls to the Plunge  Basin Overlook Trail.  This was a much rougher and darker trail than the other, and it winded through thick groves of rhododendron, with the large leaves blocking most of the light.  This lettucelike lichen  was a highlight of the trail, but certainly not the main highlight.

Orchids are always the highlight.  Those are one of the smallest plants I have ever jumped up and down in excitement over.  One silver maple leaf would have covered all of this picture's three vascular plants.  How on earth I spotted these is still amazing.  If you want to know what species it is, it is a Goodyera, or rattlesnake plantain orchid.  This is the North Carolina state-endangered Goodyera repens, a rare species according to the guidebooks and Google searches.  I suspect it's actually extremely common, but no one can see it. Sincerely, if these plants were any smaller, a microscope would have been needed.

As we approached the edge of the overlook, the understory opened up into  a sunny cliffside.  Some sort of Senecio grew along the edge of the cliff.

Linville Falls, in all its glory, stood before us.  The other trail lies at the top and behind the cliff face you see here.  To the left is the deep Linville Gorge.

 Twisted hair spikemoss (Selaginella tortipila), a type of clubmoss, grew along the shaded part of the cliff.  This is the rare clubmoss that prefers rocky sites to cool wet forested ones.

Across from us, the forest had had a recent snowfall of mountain laurel blooms. The glare in this picture makes it hard to appreciate just how many plants were in bloom.

I have spoken about Asplenium ferns before, and this above is another member of that confusing large genus of little ferns. The common name of spleenwort applies to all of them, though I would hesitate to say any of these ferns resemble a spleen.  The Blue Ridges are also a hotspot for ferns of all kinds, though they pale in comparison to Borneo's Mount Kinabalu, which has over six hundred identified species of ferns, more than all of North America (and Europe).  Still, in the Blue Ridges are more than enough ferns to keep me occupied.

Snails slid around the rocks, some, like this one, with shells an inch or two in diameter.

As we hiked back, having seen the waterfall, what are currently identified as Sweet White Violets (Viola blanda?) bloomed along the path.  I dislike this name for this species, but I do not know the violets of Illinois, let alone the Blue Ridges.

Also growing nearby was another species of orchid, albeit the far more common Goodyera pubescens. This species is ubiquitous in the East, but certainly rare and unusual for Illinois residents.  The snakeskin pattern of the leaves gave the plant its name of rattlesnake plantain.

 Here is why the Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Scenic Roadway.  As we left Linville Falls back to Asheville, we stopped at several overlooks.  Thunder rumbled in the clouds above several of the valleys.  It rained almost every afternoon in this area.

I have few pictures of the Parkway itself, but a few linger in the archives. I had fun spotting sundrops (Oernathera spp) and other colorful plants as we passed along the road back to Asheville.  On a few occasions, turkeys crossed the road in front of us.

Here is Craggy Gardens, the subject of a future hike and a previous blog post.

 This is a one-picture arguement of why to visit the Blue Ridge Mountains, as well as demonstraiting the reason they are named.  Chemicals in the evaporation of water off tree leaves give the hazy blue color the mountains are named for.

 This is why the area was called Craggy Gardens.  Huge swathes of rhododendrons grew in in what are called heath balds along both sides of the road.

Below us on the eastern side was a beautiful reservoir.

 Viburnums grew below us on the western side below the parking lot.

This mountain is Craggy Pinnacle.  Most of the top is solely covered in rhododendrons.  Below was the parking lot.  You can see where the parkway was blasted out of the mountain.

As we pulled away, this is what I saw.  I left, not knowing that Dad and I would return in two day's time to discover more about this wonderful area, albeit with the fog as a companion...