The Wet Smokies

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park gets 85 inches of rain a year – quite a bit more than Chicago, for instance, which gets only about 34 inches.  The substantial rainfall and cool mountain temperatures encourage a profusion of moss. Mosses grow on dead logs lying on the forest floor, rocks and boulders along mountain streams, around the bases of large trees, and on cliff faces and the faces of the many road cuts that were made through the mountains when the Park roads were built.  The moss is quite thick in areas, and not infrequently small plants and wildflowers take root in mossy areas.  In fact, the decaying, moss-covered logs are such hospitable places for small plants to take root that they are commonly called “nurse logs,” and play an important role in forest ecology.  The deep green of the moss brilliantly sets off the colors of the flowers.  The setting of small flowering plants growing on mossy logs and cliffs, and at the mossy bases of trees, makes for excruciatingly cute photographs.

Sweet White Violet (Viola blanda)

Broadleaf Toothwort (Cardamine diphylla)

We stopped by a wet cliff along the Newfound Gap Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to photograph Crested Dwarf Iris, which proved to be past their prime.  While looking at a patch of moss, I thought I spotted a Hepatica in bud.  On a closer look, though, there were no Hepatica leaves around – in fact, no leaves at all associated with the 4-inch tall plants.  Michael came over and told me it was an Orobanche or Broomrape, a parasitic plant growing in only one or two places in the Park.  This species absorbs nutrition from the roots of nearby tree and shrub species, rather than making its own through photosynthesis.  Because it does not photosynthesize, the entire plant lacks chlorophyll, and is white to purple in color, rather than green.  The Broomrape was growing on a steep wooded bank, and getting a photo of it required a little creativity in setting up the tripod!

Cancer Root or Broomrape (Orobanche uniflora)

Charlotte