Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage 2015 Day 4

I’m continuing this week to talk about my experience at the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage. There will be four posts in all so I hope you enjoy it!

Here are the pictures that I took during the week.

Here is the list of flora and fauna that we saw this year.

Our first hike was about Forest Foods and Pharmacy. We learned about the edible, medicinal, and otherwise useful plants of our area with Ila Hatter and Brittney Hughes. This is the third year we have attended this session and every year, I learn something new!

After lunch we were supposed to go on the Chestnut Top Trail but we got there early so we hiked it on our own. It was really narrow and steep. We decided not to hike with the group since there were so many people who showed up that it would have been impossible to hear the leader unless you were the two people behind him. So, we left there and then hiked up the Ash Hopper Branch trail where we found some beautiful flowers (but not as much as we saw last year).  After we crossed the water three times, we found one yellow lady slipper on the right over the creek and then we found a cluster of 3 yellow lady slippers up the bank on the left.  We hiked further up the trail until it got really steep and turned around.

We were going to change clothes and then head to dinner but instead, decided to head home. Since 100% rain was expected in the morning, we decided we wanted to be home before the rain started. I had totally expected to pay for the room since we were there past check out time, but they didn’t charge us for that day.

Things I Learned:

1. Ila keeps an emergency kit taped to her hiking stick consisting of needle and thread, bandaids, charcoal, string.
2. Ila would leave sage or tobacco in the hole where she collected a plant as a thank you to the earth.
3. Plantain – used for skin ailments. Make a salve (cold press or hot). Cold press – crush big pieces of leaves and stick a jar of canola oil. After a few days, add to beeswax. Hot – fry in olive or canola oil. Good for bug bites. Crush in hand and put on the bite. Antiviral and heals cuts.
4. Solomon’s Seal – cut the root and it looks like the red wax used to seal envelopes; when cut, show the Star of David
5. Doghobble – used to cover graves
6. Violets – use leaves and blooms; make syrup or jelly from blooms; Vitamin C, add leaves with other greens for a salad; too many leaves is a diuretic; common blue violet mostly used. When making a salve, add to pine and yellowroot.
7. Cinquefoil – add to salves; antibiotic properties, not edible.
8. You can freeze oil mixtures and heat them up later to add to beeswax.
9. Pine needles – young, steep in tea for Vitamin C
10. Dogwood – inner bark used for quinine
11. Partridge berry – has progesterone and estrogen in it.
12. Yucca (Spanish Dagger) used to make cordage
13. Usnea lichen can burn when wet.
14. Cherry – has arsenic in it so it has to be used fresh
15. Wild geraniums used for hemmorhoids (boil and cool off and then sit in it); used to shrink tissue
16. Spotted wintergreen – use to help pass kidney stones (diuretic), used with pipsissewa, sweet birch, sassafras, and roots of joe pye weed.
17. Bee balm – has thymol (like Listerine); disinfectant, expectorant
18. Wood sorrel (oxalis) – used to stuff fish or in a salad; lemony tasting.
19. Sweet birch – pairs of leaves on each branch; low dose of aspirin in it.
20. Club moss – doctors used to rub hands in spore powder to disinfect their hands.
21. Azalea galls – fleshy; great source of water

We really enjoyed the Pilgrimage this year! It was fun getting together with friends and also making new friends. 

Hope you enjoyed my four posts about the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage 2015. I am looking forward to going again next year.

Original photo by Pat Hensley

Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage 2015 Day 3

I’m continuing this week to talk about my experience at the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage. There will be four posts in all so I hope you enjoy it!

Here are the pictures that I took during the week.

Here is the list of flora and fauna that we saw this year.

Our first hike was a fern walk along the Little River Trail. We hoped to see a variety of the park’s 25 more common ferns
 and fern allies. Our leader was Keith Bowman. I think now I can recognize rattlesnake fern and New York fern in the while. We also saw a rare fern called the Daisy Leafed Moonwort.

In the afternoon we did a Wildflower Photography Motorcade. We traveled with authors Jack Carman (Wildflowers of Tennessee) and Robert Hutson (Great Smoky Mountain Wildflowers: When and Where to Find Them) to nearby wildflower locations to learn techniques for photographing wildflowers. We met at Sugarlands Visitor Center and then moved to the Chimneys Picnic area where we walked on the nature trail. Then we drove to a pulloff that used to be the Old Buckeye Trail (big parking area on left before the first tunnel). This was the third time with these leaders and we love attending sessions with them!

In the evening we met up with friends (Dan and Sherrie, Neal and Cindy, Steve and Jane, and Sam) for dinner at Blaine’s. It was a nice restaurant. After dinner we attended the evening program on Mushrooms. I liked the photos he showed but he went into a little more depth that I was able to listen to after a day of hiking.

Things I Learned:

1. Leafy Liverwort grows on logs that lost its bark.
2. Marginal Wood Fern is more leathery than Fancy fern but looks alike.
3. Silvery Glade Fern grows in a wetter habitat; silver hairs on stem; tapers at bottom.
4. Hay scented Fern – pinna has a lot of space between them and looks like a ladder, hairy
5. Bracken Fern – can get fairly large, fronds form a triangle; single stipe into 3 fronds, can be poisonous.
6. Cinnamon Fern – base of pinna has hairy armpits; brown means spores are gone and green means spores still there.
7. Royal fern – 6-8 feet tall, separate fertile part of middle frond.
8. Interrupted fern looks like cinnamon fern but has no fertile frond.
9. Southern Lady Fern – might have a red stipe, dark scales on stipe, not evergreen, looks like Fancy Fern but has dark scales.
10. Grape fern – like rattlesnake fern but fertile frond comes from below.
11. Purple Cliff Break Fern – dark stipe, grows on limestone
12. Cord moss – responds to moisture.
13. Use shade (like an umbrella) over the flowers to take photos. The contrast is not so strong by doing this.
14. Dutchman’s pipe will probably bloom in the second week of May.  

Come back tomorrow to hear how Day 3 went!

Original photo by Pat Hensley

Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage 2015 Day 2

(This is part 2 of 4 posts about the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage 2015)

I’m continuing this week to talk about my experience at the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage. I hope you enjoy it!

Here are the pictures that I took during Day 2.

Here is the list of flora and fauna that we saw this year.

This morning we did our first hike, which was on Edible Mushrooms. We learned the do's and don'ts about recognizing edible mushrooms and their habitat preference with field and culinary mycologists Marisol Sanchez, and Brian Looney. They were students at the University of Tennessee and were very knowledgeable about their subject. We hiked along the Engine Creek Trail and were told there was an old railroad engine at the end of the trail. We also saw a lot of wildflowers on this hike! My favorite mushroom we came across was The Devil’s Urn.

Our afternoon hike was a Wildflower Walk along the Bullhead Trail. We hiked with Roger Hedge, who works for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. He was an awesome leader! There weren’t a lot of flowers in bloom but he was able to point out a lot of flowers that were blooming along with finding the foliage of some that weren’t blooming. He was full of interesting stories and when he stopped, he did a good job of getting in the middle of the group to talk so everyone could hear what he was saying.

We were supposed to meet up with friends, Dan and Sherrie, but my Verizon cell service was out all day. We had no way to contact each other so after we finished hiking we went back to our room to wait and see if my phone would work again. I also sent Sherrie a Facebook message in case she could get it. Luckily I told them where we were staying and they came to the Microtel to find us! We went to No Way Jose restaurant for lunch and when we were done, it was raining so Don went back to the motel to get the car for us. After we got back, we went to a wonderful program on Birds of Prey.

Things I Learned:

1. Summer and fall is the best time to see mushrooms.
2. Cup fungi is found in the spring and summer.
3. Morels are also known as dry land fish or land sponges.
4. You can legally collect up to 2 lbs. of edible mushrooms per person per day in the Smokies.
5. Morels are found around tulip poplar, hickory, or elm trees.
6. Oyster mushrooms are found in the spring, off logs, usually a lot of them.
7. Dryad saddle – conch fungi that grows on side of trees; get really young in order to tast good.
8. Lung Lichen is an indicator species.
9. The Devil’s Urn is a cup mushroom.
10. Turkey tail has color banding
11. Lenzites betulina is the only polypor with gills.
12. Common Split Gill (Schizophylum commune) is known worldwide.
13. Showy orchis is one of the few that has an aroma and nectar in it.
14. About 30 species of orchids in the Smokies.
15. Rue Anemone is also known as windflower
16. Mustards have 4 petals.
17. Make back up plans with friends in case you have no cell service to call each other! 

Come back tomorrow to hear how Day 3 went!

Original photo by Pat Hensley

Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage 2015 Day 1

(This is part 1 of 4 posts about the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage 2015)

Last week my husband and I attended the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in Gatlinburg, TN. We go to this every year because I learn something new each time! The registration was $75 per person and we stayed at the Microtel Inn ($44.95/night). We arrived on Tuesday and left on Saturday afternoon.

Here are the pictures that I took during the week.

Here is the list of flora and fauna that we saw this year.

Since we got into town early, we did 3 short hikes. We went to Cataract Falls, did the Gatlinburg Trail and then the Sugarlands Valley Nature Trail. We also drove up to Newfound Gap and looked at the view.

Then around 5pm, we went to register. When I got my packet at Registration, there was only 1 registration packet so I had to go stand in the other line to get it straightened out. About 30 minutes later I got my husband’s packet. I’m so glad I brought my receipt showing that I paid!

Things I Learned:

1. Bring your receipt to registration even if you think you won’t have a problem.
2. Leave home early in case you run into traffic (there was a bad accident along the way.)
3. Go to the Italian restaurant early to avoid lines. 

Come back tomorrow to hear how Day 2 went!

Original photo by Pat Hensley