Hiking in the
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Wildflower Hikes in the Smokies Return to Hiking in the Smokies |
Recent Hikes Little Bottoms – We drove on After we had hiked about a mile on Cooper Road trail,
six of us left the group to hike on Little Bottoms trail. The trail is in
very good condition at this time, following extensive trail maintenance by
the NPS to repair many eroded sections that had been there for years.
We saw very few wildflowers on this hike, due in part
I imagine to the extreme drought we are experiencing in east Tennessee. However, we did see a few white turtlehead plants. We hiked Little Bottoms to its
intersection with The fall foliage was just beginning to
show at the lower elevations, and we had some pretty colors on I found a few plants of purple, or
field, milkwort (Polygala sanquinea),
a flower I don’t remember seeing before, although it is listed as common in Wildflowers of Tennessee by Carman
(2001). We also saw lots of “Hearts a’busting”
(a Euonymus) – these plants have
had more berries on them this year than I have ever seen before. The
surprising thing about these fruits is that nature has chosen to put magenta
and orange together in the pod and seeds. We finished this 8-mile hike by continuing
down Rabbit Creek trail, coming once again to Abrams Creek at the ranger
station. Although there is a bridge across the creek, it was quite warm by
this time so we all waded barefoot across the creek. |