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Guide to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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  • relations of various plant forms, their environments and modes of growth, and their various stages of development flirough a single season. The effects of many environmental influences upon plant life may be easily seen and soon become familiar facts. For instance, the columbine and white rhododendron usually bloom during the middle of June in the valleys, but tit higher altitudes they have been seen in bloom in August. With the early flowers come the larger orchids, especially the Showy Orchid and the Lady Slippers both purple and yellow. Other orchids, the Rattlesnake Plaintain, Ladies Tresses, Pogonias, the Twayblades and several parasitic orchids appear in the later summer and in autumn. At this time of year appear also the numerous Golden Rods, Asters and other composites . . . the highest type of our flowering plants. Lilies, Indian cucumber, devil's bit, fly poison, hellbores, zygadenus, bellworts, Clintonia, Solomon's seal, lily of the valley, dogtooth violet, wild leek or ramp, and the yucca hepaticae tire only a few of the strange and delightful species which will lure the visitor—flower guide in hand—to the depths of the woodlands. Scores of botanists have found, in the Great Smokies, species that have given them the thrills of their professional lives. The hepaticae and the trilliums have afforded botanists special delight. I'he hepaticae grow on rocks near pools and streams and reseuible mosses. In this vicinity have been found rare and beautiful varieties of the hepatica that must be studied through binoculars before their full beauty is realized. The trilliums arc another interesting subject for research 'o botanists in Tennessee and North Carolina. 'Twelve varieties of trillium are to be found in the Great Smokies. While in all of Eastern North America there are but 15 or 16 varieties. Some of the varieties have a remarkably sweet fragrance while some few give forth a repellant odor much 'ike that of decaying meat. 91
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