What's that Flower?
Article and photos by Richard Stromberg
The Old Rag loop hike is described on pages 54-57 of PATC’s “Circuit Hikes in Shenandoah National Park” and pages 252-255 of “Appalachian Trail Guide to Shenandoah National Park.” In addition to the challenging rock scrambles and spectacular views, Old Rag offers interesting flowers, some of them found only in rocky places like Old Rag.
This month shows notable plants to be seen in late summer.
You may see several species along the wooded trail before you come to the rock scramble.
Woodland Sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) leaves have no stalks. Thin-leaved Sunflower (H. decapetalus) leaf stalks are at least a quarter of an inch long and the leaves are smooth, green underneath, and sharply toothed.
Sweet-scented Joe-Pye Weed (Eutrochium purpureum) is the species of Joe-Pye Weed you will find in dry woods. It has whorls of pointed leaves and the joint where they leave the main stem is purple. Many, small, purple/pink flowers form a dome at the top of the six-foot plant.
Entire-leaved False Foxglove (Aureolaria laevigata) flowers are eye-catching: leafy racemes of 1-2 inch yellow tubes with five, flaring lobes at the end. It has a smooth, green stem and most leaves are entire, though lower leaves may be toothed.
Hog-Peanut (Amphiocarpaea bracteata) is a twining vine. It stays low and often just lays across other plants rather than wrapping around them. The leaves alternate along the stem and have three leaflets. The leaflets can be almost three inches. They have a round base from which each side extends straight for two-thirds of the leaflet to a point. They have been teasing us all summer and only put out flowers at the last moment before cooler weather. The half-inch purple-pink flowers are arranged in a raceme. They hardly seem to open, the banner petal peeling back from the other four petals, and the wing petals barely unwrapping from the two petals that are fused into a keel.
Three species of Tick-trefoil may be seen on Old Rag. Individual flowers are less than a half inch, but each inflorescence has several of them. The flowers have the typical pea structure: the upright banner is pink-violet with dark splotches at the bottom middle of the base and white spaces underneath the splotches; two wing petals are the same pink-violet; the keel is elongated the wing petals may hide it.
Naked-Flowered Tick-trefoil (Hylodesmum nudiflorum) flower stems have no leaves. The stem may reach over three feet, often leaning into the trail, with a panicle of flowers at the end which later become pods, ready to grab you. The stem comes straight out of the ground. The leaves arise from ground completely divorced from the flower stem above ground.
Dillenius’ Tick Trefoil (Desmodium glabellum) flower stems and leaves have with very short hairs that have a hook at the tip. Leaves have three leaflets also have a fringe of hairs along the edges. The leaflets are one to two inches and one-and-a-half to three times longer than wide. It has a lot of flower stems with many flowers on each stem. Narrow-leaf Tick Trefoil (D. paniculatum) is similar but has narrow leaflets, four times longer than wide.
Starry campion (Silene stellata) blooms in late summer. Its flower petals are fringed (eight to 12 lobes). It is also called widow frills. Its leaves are in whorls of four except, possibly, for a top pair.
On the rocky top you may see some of the plants described last month:
American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) trees will now have fruit, a spiky, two-inch ball, starting out green and turning brown when ripe and falling to the ground.
Michaux's Saxifrage (Hydatica petiolaris) leaves are all at the base of the plant. Each leaf is thick and shiny, up to six inches long, and has five to eight teeth on each side. The inflorescence is wide and spreading. Each flower has five, long, separated, white petals. Two smaller petals point one way and three larger ones point the other way. The larger petals have two yellow dots at the base. Slender stamen filaments spread brown anthers above the petals.
Mountain Sandwort (Minuartia groenlandica) is a northern species as its species name groenlandica (of Greenland) indicates. It is rare in the PATC area, only found on top of Old Rag Mountain where several clumps of it grow in crevices and sandy pavements. It forms mats of leaves that look like little clumps of grass, but, if you look closely, you will see that the individual leaves are fleshy. Flower stems with up to five flowers extend above the leaves. The half-inch flowers have five white petals.
Other plants you may see in rock crevices include: Orange Grass or Pineweed (Hypericum gentianoides) with wiry stems with scale-like leaves topped by quarter-inch, five-petal, yellow flowers; Allegheny Stonecrop (Hylotelephium telephiodes) with upright, green or purple stems, with wide, flat leaves, entire or lightly toothed and star-shaped flowers with five, pointed, greenish-white to pink petals with puffs of stamens protruding; and Southern Harebell (Campanula divaricata) has wide spreading branches with quarter-inch, blue-purple, bell-shaped flowers with a protruding style.
On your way back on the fire road, in wet places look for two spectacular Lobelias. Lobelia flowers have two lips spreading from a tube. The upper lip has two, erect lobes. The lower lip has three, spreading lobes.
Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) flowers are bright red.
Great Blue Lobelia (L. siphilitica) flowers are blue.
