Yellow Fringed Orchid
Cherokee National Forest Wildflower Hunting With Greg
Dana Koogler
Greg Evans
Saturday August 10, 2019
Saturday morning I had the good fortune to get to go wildflower hunting with my buddy Greg Evans. We met up and carpooled to some backroads in the Southern Unaka mountains of the Cherokee National Forest. The area I had wanted to visit is remote and isolated so I did not feel comfortable going alone. It was very reassuring plus fun to get to spend time with him. His wife, Donna is also a great friend, but she did not come along on this venture. She is recovering from knee surgery and being careful not to over do it. She has come too far to mess things up now.
We followed a route suggested by a lady who had visited about a week earlier. I hoped we'd see lots of pretty stuff. A second reason for the route selection was the mistaken notion that one of the roads was no longer open for travel. The day was not scorching hot and had a little breeze stirring.
We conversed and caught up on each other's doings. We passed a crow sitting on a guard rail holding a snake! I've never seen a crow eat a snake, but he sure did have him one. We also saw three broad winged hawks. We saw one pileated woodpecker. Finally we began seeing some good stuff and started pulling the jeep over for photos. I took a few minutes to harvest a plastic bag of orange jewelweed from a ditch. I planned to use it to make an herbal remedy for poison ivy. It is a delicate little flower with some very soothing properties for the skin. The one bag made a years worth of juice! I concocted four bottles of poison ivy spray. It is to relieve itching, heal rash and if applied prior to going out .. to prevent poison ivy in the first place!
Above: Pretty orange jewelweed juice! I will use this in poison ivy prevention/relief sprays, bath bombs, and salves. Since I got interested in health through more natural remedies I've always got such a mess of weird stuff in the kitchen. A crockpot full of weeds I'm cooking down. Bottles of non food items in the frig chilling. I'm going to ask Kenny to get us a small refrigerator for the downstairs. I will separate my medicinals to that one. :-D
Above: Finished product. Contains orange jewelweed juice, witch hazel and a few drops of grapefruit essential oil for a nicer fragrance.
Above: Purse sized bottle of jewelweed spray. This clear bottle really shows the beautiful orange color of it. It is 100% natural. No colorings added.
Above: Keeping with the orange theme... one of the flowers I hoped to see was yellow fringed orchid and we did see plenty of them. Some were past peak and had some brown on them, but this little one was quite fresh.
Above: We saw quite a bit of deep purple New York Ironweed. The season of purple and gold is creeping in on little cat feet.
Above: Another orange flower I was sure hoping to see was Carolina lily and we did. Lots and lots of them. I was thrilled and we took plenty of stops for photos and prowling round to see what else might be in the nearby woods. It paid off handsomely. We also found harder to spot cranefly orchids and I found a particularly bright, fresh Carolina lily.
Below: Cranefly orchid
Below: another beautiful carolina lily.
We saw many of the colorful array of August wildflowers one might expect. Bold red cardinal flower with lots of butterflies feeding. We saw lots of yellow sunflowers, goldenrod, blue lobelia,
even some asters were starting to bloom. They are another sign of impending cooler temperatures, changing leaf colors and falling leaves.
Above: blue lobelia of some sort. there are several types, but I did not the pains to narrow it down.
Above: Cardinal flower with a spicebush swallowtail butterfly nectaring.
Above: Some type of aster. There are many, many of this species.
Above: Loomis' Mountain Mint. I used to see this and think it looked the way it did because of road dust being on the leaves. That is just how it is made. It is silver and green!
Greg and I spent a fair amount of time through the morning of our adventure of plotting and scheming and dreaming where else we needed to go to see this orchid or that wildflower. I think he is like myself in that he enjoys the ponder as much as the actual finding of the targeted wildflower!
He and Donna are like me and Kenny in many ways. They are all about family, simplicity, very chill, lots of joie de vivre. I know from meeting them and from listening to them tell about it.. they are happy just exploring old backroads. It is amazing if you are curious and like exploring what a great deal of satisfaction can be had in such a simple pursuit.
I had packed us lunch, snacks, drinks in the cooler. We sprayed ourselves down with permethrin and kept hydrated, but the eating... we neither one ate a bite. Too excited about flower hunting and far too hot and sweaty to care about eating. While the temperature today was not horrible and we had some overcast... the humidity was very high. It rained a few sprinkles on us, but the rain stopped as abruptly as it started.
Finally the long route we had taken ended us up at the point where we planned to hike.
I parked the jeep and we got out to gather our gear for the hike part of the day. Greg brought us each a pair of snake gaiters. Donna loaned me hers since she wasn't going. Kenny and I are going to invest in a couple pairs of these. I have gaiters, but they would not turn a snake bite.
They are easy to use. They are very hot on the legs, but worth the added safety and security.
Our location today I had see photographs within the previous week of rattlesnakes. Greg, Donna and myself all had copperhead encounters in this location so we were not taking any unnecessary chances. The hike was easy and uneventful. All told we saw six types of native orchids today! Rattlesnake orchids being one of them, but they were really showing their age.
Above: We saw several green woodland orchids. The ones I saw were past their prime.
It wasn't long til we spotted more bold red cardinal flower and began seeing the main attraction... the white blooms of monkey face orchids.
Above: Platanthera integrilabia.. the monkey face orchid or white fringeless orchid.
They are globally imperiled, but locally abundant. There are three known locations on the planet.
I recently learned of a fourth, but unconfirmed spot. It may be extirpated at that location. I hope to be able to find out for myself one day and I hope it is still thriving.
Below: I got a shot that I really liked of the orchids with the trees and ferns in the background. They are growing in a lush carpet of sphagnum moss in this spot.
I searched for this location for many moons and it feels mighty good to get the chance to see this for myself. The first time Kenny and I were here .. we were thrilled, but the area was under water that must have been 18 inches to two feet deep in places so it was a very different experience. Today was just right.
Above: Thousands and thousands of white fringeless orchids.
Below: Royal Ferns were abundant in this area as well. Osmunda regalis. It is a beautiful fern. These grow along the East Fork river in great numbers. They are very elegant.
Above: Another beautiful orchid we were blessed to get to see in bloom was orange bog orchid. I had seen this once before, but it was only one orchid and it was not fully bloomed out. It had two or three open blossoms and the rests buds. It is a lovely creation. These were nowhere near as thick as the white fringeless orchids, but we saw quite a number of them.
Below: Sensitive Fern. This is another fern I really like. It grows in the Smokies as well. 
Below: another close up shot of white fringeless orchids
Lastly we saw something odd that would have been easily overlooked. It caught my eye and had me snooping round to see what it was. Greg was the same way in another spot! Turns out this little stalk is Bartonia. It was only in bud stage. There are a couple kinds.. this one is Bartonia virginica
We spent plenty of time in the woods, but finally wrapped up our explorations and headed back to the jeep. Too hot to care about eating. Yuck. All I wanted to do was sip something cold to drink and cool off and dry up some of the sweat. We drove back down the mountain and said our good byes. It was a fun day and I am already looking forward to the next adventure and hoping Kenny and Donna can join us for that one. We had invited Betsy Lee to go along, but she already had plans.
Once we parted company I was pretty tired, but I did some thinking as I headed up the road.
I decided if I got to Madisonville and felt like I had any energy left I wanted to go hunt up a couple things. I was able to muster enough of a second wind to pull that off. I was successful in location the Belltown Mill. It was a nice find. I also saw an old school building that was intriguing.
I did not locate the Barum Creek Mill, but will have to get Paul and Amanda and maybe Shawn to take me to see that one during colder weather. Too snakey and hot for that now.
I got home and had Paul Gamble school me and remind me without meaning too.. of the fact that once again I am Miss Chronically Late to the Party. He knows of and has seen these old mills and buildings many times over. Even my son in law Adam, was aware of many of these places I "discover" and get so excited about. I'm just happy to have finally learned of some of them and get to see some.
Tellico Plains water tower
Last of all.. a 30 second video of the forest sounds and the orchids.
