September 15th, 2012. After driving
over Patterson Gap Road in the Chattahoochee National Forest, we turned off
Persimmon Raod and drove up the Coleman River Road as far as we could go. We
still had some daylight although it was cloudy. We decided to drive up the
Tallulah River Road. At the end of the Tallulah River Road, we turned right
onto Tate City Road. The valley widens here with the river, much smaller here,
on the other side of the fields. We continued on past Tate City and finally ran
to the end of the paved road onto a gravel road when it crossed the
Georgia-North Carolina border and ended at the head of a trail into the
Southern Nantahala Wilderness. On the way, we found…
Showy Gentian (Gentiana decora) or Soapwort
Gentian (Gentiana saponaria)
Just a few plants growing on an
embankment. This one had a nicely opened flower. My current guess is G. decora but please correct
me if I’m wrong. I still struggling with gentians.
The leaves, flowers and buds
A closer view
I tried for better photographs of
the opened flower but was balanced precariously on loose pine needles on the
side of a steep embankment and didn’t quite pull it off, but…
An oblique view of the flower, and…
A direct view that’s not quite in
as quite a sharp focus as I would have liked.
Another land snail (Mesodon sp.?)
Northern Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum
pedatum)
This was the first time I had seen
these ferns. They are striking…
at a distance.
A closer view
A close-up view of a frond.
The
road ended at the head of a trail into the Southern Nantahala Wilderness
It was getting dark but we wandered
along the road near the trail head.
Common Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema
triphyllum subspecies triphyllum)
We found a number of jacks-in-the-pulpit
along the hillside above the road. I’ve never seen this species in the wild
although I’ve been following a plant of Arisaema triphyllum subsp. quinatum (Southern Jack-in-the-pulpit) in Greene County for a couple of years now.
We
spotted the ripe seeds and the leaves gave their identity away.
A
closer view of the ripe seeds.
Strawberry
Bush (Euonymus americanus)
I
still enjoy finding these in the woods.
Close
views of the ripe seeds
Jewelweed
(Impatiens capensis)
There
were quite a lot of Impatiens capensis plants at the edge of the parking area.
The flowers were a little past their best.
Pale
jewelweed (Impatiens pallida)
Only
the second place where I’ve seen Impatiens pallida. There were only a few
plants; they were far outnumbered by Impatiens capensis plants.
Buckeye
seeds
We
walked just a little way up the trail. A number of buckeye seed pods with
exposed seeds were lying on the trail
It
was late in the season and almost dark as we walked around this area which is
certainly a place we’ll visit again in different seasons.
Click
on an image to view a larger image
Identification
resources:
Southeastern Flora
Natural
and Naturalized Plants of the Carolinas and Georgia:
Distribution:
United
States Department of Agriculture Plants Database:
Related
post:
I see that you can call yourself both a botanist and a photographer as well a microbiologist. Those whites and reds are extremely tricky to get right and I'm impressed by the rest.
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