Helonias bullata in Watson-Cooper Heritage Preserve, Greenville County, South Carolina — 2014-04-28

It is a very busy time for this arm-chair naturalist. Last week I had a visitor, Lee Casebere, from Indianapolis, Indiana who came to the area mainly to see Helonias bullata or Swamp Pink in flower. Unfortunately, during the two nights prior to his visit, we had sub-freezing temperatures which zapped the flowers that were about to bloom. The plants were pretty sad with wilted flower stems and brown flowers.

Today, however, the explicit goal of my trip was to check out the orchids that are about to bloom in the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, North Carolina. A few of them were in bloom, but on the whole they were not quite ready for publication, so on the way back home, I decided to see if any of the Helonias bullata had improved during the ensuing week to put on a good show as in previous years.

I had recently discovered that there was an additional site for these plants. So I parked my truck, gathered my camera gear, and set off to the new spot. The “trail” to the new site is not really a trail at all. I had to work my way through waist-high shrubs and around large Mountain Laurel and Rosebay Rhodendron. Finally, I reached the spot and immediately, from 20 feet (6 meters) away, I noticed the strong, sweet fragrance of the Helonias bullata flowers.

Last week, when we visited the site, we found several clumps of plants — one with nine bloom stems in very tight bud. Here is what it looks like today:

At the site, the flowers were in every stage of readiness from ground-level in very tight bud, to 15 inches (38 cm) tall stems with flowers in full bloom. As the flowers begin to open, the petals are at their most colorful. They tend to lighten as the flowers mature:

Although there were several large clumps of blooming flowers, most of the blooming plants consisted of just a few flower stems:

From a distance, the 3-inch (7.5 cm) flower heads appear to have a purplish hue. This is caused by the blue stamens. The flowers petals are quite pink. You can see the effect of the blue stamens in this shot:

I spent about an hour studying the site and photographing the flowers. Now it was getting late, so I decided to pack up and head back to the truck. But on the way out, I had to capture a few more shots of some of the groups of flower heads:

I’m glad the plants and flowers bounced back from that cold snap. I shouldn’t be too surprised, because they have been growing and blooming at this site for many, many years — perhaps centuries. Thanks to the hard work from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the woody growth that may have held them back has been removed, and now the plants can flourish and bloom for many years to come…

Disclaimer: Due to the heavy volume of calls to the SCDNR about how to find these plants, I have been asked to tell folks that these are federally protected plants in a very fragile environment, and information concerning their location will not be divulged.

–Jim