This day trip to Mt. Mitchell was set up several months ago with friends from the Smithsonian Institution who wanted to conduct research on Platanthera psycodes or Small Purple Fringed orchid. The folks from the Smithsonian were Tom Mirenda, orchid specialist who is responsible for maintaining the national orchid collection of 8,000+ specimens, and Lisa

Walter Ezell and I left Greenville, South Carolina at daybreak for the mountains of North Carolina — specifically to Mt. Mitchell State Park and other locations along the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway. Although the Parkway is our longest National Park, it is only a few hundred yards wide in several sections. Our main objective was

We continued on our way into the mountains of extreme northern Georgia. Our next stop would be a wet meadow on Chatuge Lake in Towns County, Georgia. This is a Nature Conservancy protected area with restricted access because it is the site of a federally endangered pitcher plant, Sarracenia oreophila or Green Pitcher Plant. Fortunately,

I was really looking forward to a trip into the mountains of north Georgia to photograph an orchid that is found in only two Georgia sites — Platanthera grandiflora or Large Purple Fringed orchid. I joined five botanists/naturalists/photographers from Georgia, and we met at a convenience store in the tiny community of Suches, Union County,

After leaving the upper Greenville County heritage preserves, I headed up Hwy. 276 toward Brevard, North Carolina and the Pisgah National Forest. Here, I hoped to find the elusive Neottia smallii or Appalachian Twayblade orchid also known as Kidney-leaf Twayblade orchid. I use the term, “elusive”, because this diminutive orchid is almost never seen unless

On Saturday morning, I left early for a full day’s field trip to the foothills and mountains of the Carolinas. My main goal was to photograph the flowers of Cleistesiopsis bifaria or Small Spreading Pogonia orchid. I had seen it in bud in an upstate South Carolina heritage preserve a couple of weeks ago, and