Botanizing in upstate Greenville County, South Carolina — 2015-05-28

Today, with a new lease on life, I decided to head up to some of my favorite upstate Greenville County wildflower locations. The primary one is Persimmon Ridge Road and the couple of state Heritage Preserves which it transects. There is hardly any time of the year except the dead of winter (and winter is not really that tough for us down here), when there isn’t some plant species blooming in that area. However, today I would start on Hwy. 276 along the Blue Ridge Escarpment to check out the huge population of Spigelia marilandica or Indian Pink which blooms on the slopes next to the highway. This is a wonderfully bright flower which almost seems to explode with color. Its lipstick-red corolla tube bursts into a bright yellow star as the petals unfurl. Such a sight is not seen in any other native wildflower that I know of in the area. Here are some shots of this striking flower:

Indian Pink flowers

Actually, my visit to this location was not all that pleasant, because while I was photographing the Indian Pink, I was unaware that I was standing on top of a Yellow jacket wasp nest. I kept hearing a lot of buzzing, but at first I thought it might be from insects attracted to the Indian Pink. Not until I felt the first of several stings around my ankles, did I realize that I was in trouble. I got out of there fast, I tell you, and they followed me for some distance. Fortunately, I do not have a severe reaction to wasp stings. Nevertheless, I can still feel the pain as I write this… a reminder to be more aware of my surroundings while in the woods.

After recovering my dignity, I headed to a nearby area where I had photographed an Aplectrum hyemale or Putty-root orchid in full bloom a few weeks prior to this trip. Today, I saw that the orchid was producing seeds. Below, are the images of the plant in full bloom and the seed capsules I saw on this trip:

I finished the photography at the site and got into the truck and headed back down the Escarpment to Persimmon Ridge Road where I would spend time searching the roadside for signs of color. The first color I saw belongs to a common Milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa or Butterfly Milkweed. This low-growing plant often hosts many different species of butterflies during the several months in which it blooms. Along Persimmon Ridge Road, I have seen it in several shades of orange or yellow, and it is always a pleasing sight to see. There were a good number of plants set to bloom in the next few weeks, this one being the only one with open flowers:

Nearby, just down the road a bit, I could see the unmistakable shape of another Milkweed, Asclepias variegata or Red-ring Milkweed. Its ball of flowers looks like the top of a snow cone from a distance, but without the garish, fruity colors. Up close, it’s easy to see how it got its common name, because there is a dark red ring around each flower:

At this point, I decided to head on into the Heritage Preserve, since I could see thunderheads building not so far away. I know of a location for an orchid species that until a few years ago, I was not aware it grew in the Heritage Preserve. It is Cleistesiopsis bifaria or Small Spreading Pogonia orchid. Thanks to a botanist friend, Jean Woods, I now know where to find a couple of populations. As with other orchid species, this one does not always show every year, but the site I have been studying has at least a few plants that are fairly reliable. This year, I was surprised to find two of the plants growing side-by-side, and both were mature enough to produce flowers. When I visited today, they were almost in bloom. I’ll give them another couple of days and photograph them again when they are fully open and post the image here. However, I will show you what they looked like today:

Update – May 30, 2015: As I promised, I went back to the site to try to catch the pair in full bloom. Here are the results:

I headed back to the truck to continue my adventure, walking through the woods and searching for more orchid plants. Sooner than I expected, I came across a rather large group of Cypripedium acaule or Pink Lady’s-slipper orchids. They were past flowering, but the fortunate part is that many of the plants were showing seed capsules. That is such a good sign, because many of the Pink Lady’s-slipper orchids in the area do not get pollinated each year. This group of about twenty plants had produced about eight stems each with a seed capsule. I consider that a very good percentage. Here is a shot of one of the seed capsules with the withered orchid flower still attached to the end of the capsule:

I finally got back to the truck and headed back down Persimmon Ridge Road. There is a tight turn in one section where I always stop to check out the damp hillside. Today, I found Matelea carolinensis or Carolina Milkvine. This is a vining plant with large, heart-shaped leaves. Once the plant attains a sufficient height by finding a suitable tree on which to climb, it produces clusters of mahogany-red flowers:

Scattered nearby, were a number of Tradescantia virginiana or Spiderwort. I’m used to seeing them as having sky-blue to purple flowers, but these were a lovely shade of very light blue:

I finished up at that spot and headed down the road to my final destination for the day. It is a seep on top of a solid granite bald. It’s amazing that anything can thrive in this rather harsh environment. If it were not for the constant seep of water, this would just be a dry granite bald. This site contains several wildflower species that are very colorful. The first of which is an orchid that is also found along the Carolina Coastal Plain. It is Calopogon tuberosus or Common Grass-pink orchid. Here, it flowers in several shades of pink and magenta. Today, I saw many hundreds of plants, but the large majority of them would have been much more photographable a week to ten days ago. Having said that, I did find a few that still had fresh flowers at the top of the stem:

However, the most striking flowers were those of a carnivorous plant, Utricularia cornuta or Horned Bladderwort. This tiny plant has leaves that are less than 1/2 inch long (10 mm). What is remarkable is that it is able to produce a flower stem that is about 12 inches tall (30 cm). At the top of this flower stem are 2 to 5 bright yellow flowers, each emitting a very sweet fragrance. They grow along the edges of the bog that forms when dirt and debris collects on top of the granite bald. It is, indeed, a carnivorous plant, having numerous underground traps with which it captures and devours small critters that inhabit the water and the soil of the bog:

They even form clumps in tiny depressions in the granite, presumably holding on to any semblance of dirt and sand that might collect there. Here is another image of the Horned Bladdewort:

In these next two shots, you can easily see why it got its name, Horned Bladderwort, from the prominent horn-shaped appendage on the back of each flower:

Incidentally, that little blue and white flower that appears in many of the images is Lindernia monticola or Carolina False Pimpernel. It is a frequent visitor of wet places and pond margins in the Carolina mountains. Here is a closeup of the flower:

However, the star of the show at this boggy site is another carnivorous plant, Sarracenia jonesii or Mountain Sweet Pitcher Plant. This Pitcher Plant is quite rare, inhabiting only a few sites in a couple of counties in South Carolina and North Carolina. On this trip, I saw that the plants had already finished blooming. The following images show two very nice clumps of plants with scattered, Common Grass-pink orchids finishing up their bloom nearby:

Here is what one of those clumps looked like a year or so ago when in full bloom:

Wow! The end of another successful adventure in the upstate of South Carolina. After a nearly disastrous week, health-wise, it was good to get back out into the field and catch up with my photography. Seeing these wonderful natural sights always puts me in a good mood and gets those endorphins flowing. There is nothing like being out in nature to center one’s self and get back into the groove…

–Jim