Sandy Rumsey
…an ordinary person

“In a field of roses, she is a wildflower.”
Wildflower Note: If I have misidentified these flowers, please feel free to add a comment in the comment section. I welcome all comments and corrections! The idea is to get it right! Thanks in advance.
Wildflowers are such a gift of nature. I am always looking for new little flowers along each trail and love finding those blooms that are short-lived and rare.

Hiking Mountain View Trail
Spending time at the North 40 is a bit bittersweet. We have this entire wonderful place and Phil still has to work and cannot enjoy it. He rode with me on the trip out and stayed here for 20 hours before flying out to go back to work. 🙁 So, as I walked the Mountain...

Pingue Rubberweed
I am not sure I have this correctly identified. I is everywhere on the roadsides near White Sulphur Springs in Montana. The leaves don't look exactly like the pictures I have found online but they are similar and no other flower I can find comes closer to the...

June in Montana
Wildflower season in the Northern Rockies is in full bloom late May through June. This year, I got spent several weeks at our house during the peak of the flower season. I walked all over the property with my camera trying to make sure that I cataloged the species...

NC Wildflowers
Spring has sprung here in the mountains and I'm scrambling to get out and photograph as many flowers as possible before they are gone. So many of the spring flowers bloom only for a few short days! So, here are a few of the flowers I saw today. Bluets [gallery...

Flame Azalea
The Flame Azalea is the most dramatic of all azalea and is found in the wild in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Some of the bushes are over 7 feet high and can spread as much as 8 feet. Like most of the flowering plants in the Blue Ridge, it's blooms are relatively...

Woodland Sunflower
The top of Mt. Leconte, Tennessee is covered in these flowers during the summer months. Apparently, they like that high sunny climate.

Periwinkle
Periwinkle: This picture was taken on April 8, 2013 at the beginning of the Four Seasons Trail at Chimney Rock State Park. This was the first time I have spotted it blooming in Western North Carolina. It is such a simple little flower. So very pretty.

Bluets
Bluets are my favorite wild flower. These tiny little stars bloom out of cracks and crevices on woodland trails in Western North Carolina. You can find them on almost every trail in the western part of the state during their blooming season. They are happy...

Wood Anemone
The Wood Anemone is a member of the Buttercup Family. The flower is approximately 1" in diameter,white and sometimes pink on the reverse side. Anemone quinquefolia is an early-spring flowering plant in the genus Anemone, native to North America. It is commonly called...

Wild Geranium
I was surprised to find that Wild Geraniums grow wild in Western NC! The leaf is classic geranium shape. The bloom is a bit more delicate with less petals and a single bloom on each stalk.

Star Chickweed
The pictures of this flower are a little ambiguous. I think it is a star chickweed. White 5 petal starlike flowers about the size of a dime in clusters at the top of an erect stem and rising from the leaf axils. The petals are incised half their length or more...

Dwarf Crested Iris
See Iris Cristata A low, bearded Iris of southern and midwestern wooded uplands. It is fragrant and grows in peaty soils and pine barrens from Maryland southward. A single, violet-blue flower with 6 spreading petal parts at the top of a short slender stalk. The bloom...

Hyacinth
Hyacinth Triteleia grandiflora See Wild Hyacinth I found a few pictures online that have this flower classified in the hyacinth family. It could be misinformation, however. I made the final specification based on the shape of the leaves and blooms. We found them...

Mountain Bluebell
See Bluebell The small, delicate bluebell seems to be hardy in arid rocky dirt. The leaf is sage colored. Mountain Bluebell

Pasqueflower
Pasque Flower (or pasqueflower), wind flower, prairie crocus, Easter Flower, and meadow anemone. See Pasque Flower These little flowers look like a wild tulip. The insides are white with purple outer shells. We found these growing in close proximity to the base of...

Phlox (Woodland Phlox)
See Woodland Phlox The blooms of Woodland Phlox make this easily identifiable. It grows in clumps all around our property with white, pink or purple blooms. Phlox divaricata (wild blue phlox, woodland phlox, wild sweet william) is a species of flowering plant in the...

Pineapple Weed
See Pineapple Weed I am not sure I have this flower identified correctly. My picture matches several online pictures, but the wiki pics must be taken after the petals fall off.

Shooting Star
Shooting Star (Dodecatheon) Common names include shooting star, American cowslip, mosquito bills, mad violets, and sailor caps.

Turk’s-cap Lily
It's tall flowering stem divides into several drooping bright orange flowers. The green streak a the base of each flower segment for a green "star". Each flower is approximately 2 1/2" long with recurved petals and petal-like sepals. The Turk's-cap Lily blooms between...

Southern Harebell
Campanula divaricata - a.k.a. Southern Harebell, Small Bonny Bellflower, Southern Bellflower, Southern Bluebell. Southern Harebell is a many-branched, somewhat weak-stemmed plant with many dangling, small, bell-shaped blue flowers.

Barren Strawberry
A low growing strawberry like plant with several yellow flowers on a leafless flower stalk extending from a bed of evergreen leaves. It has 5 petals 3 to 6 pistals and many stamens. Foliage divided into 3 wedge shaped, toothed, 1-2" leaves. Height: 3-8"

Hawthorne
The common name of this Hawthorne honors the Biltmore Estate here in Western North Carolina where early studies of hawthorns were conducted. Small tree with irregular crown, thicket forming shrub. Has 5/8" flowers with white petals. Crataegus

Rhododendron
Catawba Rhododendron "Mountain-rosebay" "Purple-laurel" Evergreen small tree thicket forming shrub with broad, rounded crown and spectacular displays of large clusters of purplish blossoms. Height: 20'Leaves: 3-6" thick and leathery elliptical, blunt at tip and...

Fringetree
"Old-man's-beard" Shrub or small tree with short trunk, oblong and narrow crown with showy masses of fragrant lacy, white, flowers. You can smell the sweet blooms from 1/4 mile away. Leaves: 4-8" Narrow, ellipticalHeight: 30'Flowers: 1" long with delicate corolla of 4...

Buttercup
The Common Buttercup is a tall branchy plant with glossy yellow flowers that "cup" up.The flowers are about 1" in diameter and have 5 petals. 1-4" basal leaves.

Common Winter Cress

Dandelion

Fescue

Wild Strawberry
Fragaria /frəˈɡɛəriə/ is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. There are more than 20 described species and many hybrids and cultivars. The most common strawberries grown commercially are...

Swamp Dewberry
Rubus hispidus, with the common names swamp dewberry, bristly dewberry, bristly groundberry, groundberry, hispid swamp blackberry or running swamp blackberry, is North American species of dewberry in the rose family.The plant grows in moist or sometimes dry soils,...

Wild Oats

Bitterroot
Bitterroot was Adopted as the State flower of Montana in 1895 Botanical name: Lewisia rediviva and Bitterroot Sand RoseAlso called “the resurrection flower”Fun Fact: In 1805, Bitterroot was first discovered by Meriwether Lewis of the historical Lewis and Clark...

Grass of Parnassus

Jewel Weed
Featured Picture Found on Alum Cave Trail, August 29, 2015

Bottle Gentian
Gentiana andrewsii (bottle gentian, closed gentian, or closed bottle gentian) is a herbaceous species of flowering plant in the Gentian family Gentianaceae. Plants are native to northeastern North America from the Dakotas to the East Coast and...

Appalachian Sunflower
Found on Alum Cave Trail, August 29, 2015

Bloodroot
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) Herbaceous flowering perennial that is also known as bloodwort, redroot, red puccoon, and sometimes parson. It's juice is red and poisonous. I see these blooms on almost every trail here in the western part of N.C. ...

Painted Trillium
Trillium undulatum, the painted trillium, is a wildflower of the genus trillium found from Ontario in the north to northern Georgia in the south and from Michigan in the west to Nova Scotia in the east.[2][4] It is also known as painted lady or trille ondulé. It...

Purple (or Red) Trillium
Trillium erectum, also known as red trillium,[3] wake-robin, purple trillium,[4] Beth root, or stinking Benjamin,[5] is a speciesof flowering plant native to the east and north-east of North America. It is...

Trillium grandiflorum
Trillium grandiflorum is a perennial that grows from a short rhizome and produces a single, showy white flower atop a whorl of three leaves. These leaves are ovate (i.e., egg-shaped) in outline with pointed tips. They...

Little Sweet Betsy
Earliest to Emerge in WNC Trillium cuneatum, the little sweet Betsy, is a flowering perennial plant which is native to the southeastern United States, with a few scattered populations naturalized in the midwestern part of the country. It flowers in early March to mid...

Larkspur
There are different types of Larkspur and I am struggling to classify this particular variety. It looks a lot like the "Spring Larkspur" picture found in the Audubon Field Guide. Online resources are contradictory. Delphinium is a genus of about 300 species of...

Alpine Aster
Oresostemma apligenum A widespread flower in drier meadows and stony slopes (common in the Sunrise area). Distinguished by a single flower head per stem, with a few small, narrow leaves along stem. These are all over the North 40. [su_posts posts_per_page="9999"...

Rocky Mountain Iris
Iris missouriensis On or around June 6, 1806, Captain Meriweather Lewis collected this flower on his return trip to Washington. This very interesting story can be read in it's entirety on the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks website. Rocky Mountain iris, a member of...

Wild Blue Flax (Prairie Flax)
Prairie flax grows 18–20 inches tall. It rarely stands straight up, but rather leans at an angle. Flowers are pale blue, with 5 petals about 1–1 1/2 inches across, veined in darker blue. Each stem produces several flowers, blooming from the bottom...

Blue Flax

Trillium
Trillium is such a beautiful and delicate spring flower. The most common color in the Blue Ridge and Smokys is white. Pink and Red are pretty, too, but harder to find. Plants of this genus are perennial herbs growing from rhizomes. They produce scapes which are erect...

Eastern Redbud
Redbud. Glorious purple-pink blossoms brighten early spring in many North American forests. Available in a range of graceful forms, redbud is adaptable to a wide spectrum of garden climates — in California it performs more dramatically than the native California...

Mountain Laurel
Mountain Laurel bloom late spring - early summer in Western North Carolina in the wooded high altitudes. Their blooms are a delicate washed out pink with darker veining within the bloom.

Violets
The leaves of this tiny little spring flower identify it to us as a violet. It grows in wet wooded areas and can be purple, white or yellow. Halberd-Leaved Violet

Table Mountain Pine
Table Mountain pine, Pinus pungens, also called hickory pine, prickly pine,[1] or mountain pine, is a small pine native to the Appalachian Mountains in the United States. Pinus pungens is a tree of modest size (6–12 m), and has a rounded, irregular shape. The needles...

Halberd-Leaved Violet
Viola hastata, commonly known as the halberd-leaved yellow violet, is a perennial plant in the violet family found in the eastern United States. It blooms from March to May with yellow flowers. It one of the "stemmed" violets because its leave are all on an above...

Ground Ivy
"Gill-over-the-Ground" Mint Family Flowers are 1/2-3/4" long 2-lipped, the lower lip with 3 lobes and 4 stamens that do not protrude. The leaves are 1;2-1 1/2" long with wavy, margined edges. Ground Ivy

WNC Blueberries
See North American Blueberry Apparently, Hammonton, New Jersey claims to be the blueberry capital of the world but if you have visited Ivester Gap on the Blue Ridge Parkway during the months of July and August, you may beg to differ. There are blueberry thickets so...

Carolina Spring Beauty
Claytonia caroliniana, the Carolina springbeauty, is an herbaceous perennial in the family Montiaceae. Its native range is eastern and central North America from Newfoundland west to Ontario, Minnesota, and the Ozarks and south as far as northern Alabama. Claytonia...

Witch Hobble
Viburnum lantanoides (commonly known as hobble-bush, witch-hobble, alder-leaved viburnum, American wayfaring tree,[2] and moosewood[3]) is a perennial shrub of the family Adoxaceae (formerly in the Caprifoliaceae), growing 2–4 meters (6–12 ft) high with pendulous...

Mountain Doghobble
"Leucothoe fontanesiana, the highland doghobble, fetter-bush, mountain doghobble or switch ivy, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, native to the southeastern United States. It is an erect evergreen shrub growing to 1–2 m (3–7 ft) tall by 3 m (10...

Pink Shell Azalea
Rhododendron vaseyi is a species of flowering plant in the heath family known by the common name pinkshell azalea. It is endemic to North Carolina in the United States, where it is known only from the southern Appalachians in and near Great Smoky Mountains National...

Blanket Flower
Gaillardia /ɡeɪˈlɑːrdiə/ Gaillardia is a member of the sunflower and is common in North and South America. The common name refers to the resemblance of the color to Native American blankets. It grows wild on our Montana property and the surrounding area....
Recent Happenings

Avery Creek: Bennet Gap Trail – Perry Cove Loop
Avery Creek: Bennet Gap Trail - Perry Cove Loop Distance: 4.2 Elevation Gain: 1119 ft. Difficulty: Moderate "If you don't know where you're going, you might end up someplace else." ---- Yogi Berra It has been such a rainy year. The trail had been scoured clean by...

Long Ridge Trail in the Green River Gamelands
"If you don't know where you're going, you might end up someplace else." ---- Yogi BerraLong Ridge - Turkey Gut Trail Loop Distance: 3.6 Miles Out and Back Elevation Gain: 472 ft. Difficulty: Easy Road Walk Whelp, we started on Long Ridge Trail and walked to the...