Sandy Rumsey

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...

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

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 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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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

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...

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.

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"

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

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...

"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...

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. 

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...

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,...

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

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...

Found on Alum Cave Trail, August 29, 2015

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. ...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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.

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

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...

"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

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...

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...

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...

"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...

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...