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Dog Days Flower Craze

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The Smokies are known for their spring ephemerals. Hundreds of species of wildflowers, like bloodroot, Dutchman’s breeches, trout lily, trilliums and more impatiently claw their way through the brown leaf litter under the sparse spring canopy of eastern forests.

But the truth is this is only the beginning of the colorful annual progression of wildflowers that will grace the Southern Appalachians until the killing frosts of autumn. Beautiful wildflowers abound throughout our mountains even during the dog days of summer.

The spectacular Turk’s Cap Lily, Lilium superbum, will still be flowering in August. This robust lily may grow to nearly 10 feet and the flowering head can contain as many as 20 flowers. It has large orange and brown spotted flowers with recurved petals. This huge lily is common along the roadside on the Blue Ridge Parkway, along field edges, and in openings in the forests. Many Rudbeckia, such as black-eyed Susan and tall coneflower, will also grace roadsides and open areas across the region through the dog days of summer.

Some brilliant reds—crimson bee-balm, Monarda didyma and Lobelia cardinalis (cardinal flower)—are also prone to roadsides and field edges, especially in moist situations. If you’re feeling blue you will have lots of company throughout late summer. Tall bellflower, Campanulastrum americanum, can grow to nearly 5 feet and has showy 1-inch wide blue flowers along the ends of the stem. Other blues or shades of blue from lavender to purple that brave the summer heat include the giant purple-headed Joe Pye weed, Eupatoriadelphus maculatus, whose whorled-leaved stalk can reach 15 feet. Obedient plant, Physostegia virginiana, so-named because you can take your finger and gently push the corolla to one side or the other and it will, obediently, remain in its new position, can also grow nearly 5 feet. In open areas like along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Richland Balsam the small, often less than a foot tall, deep purple stiff gentian, Gentianella quinquefolia, is quite common.

By September the asters are in full force. Asters are part of a large and complicated family of plants called Asteraceae, also known as Compositae because many of the members, including the asters have flowering heads that are composed of two types of flowers. A good example is black-eyed Susan. The black center of the flower is actually a collection of small flowers known as disc flowers while the yellow petals are actually, also, complete flowers known as rays or straps. Asters come in a variety of colors and sizes from giant yellow sunflowers to the small white wood aster. 

Some of the more common asters across the Southern Appalachians include white wood aster, Aster divaricatus; New England aster, Aster novae-angliae; cornel-leaved aster, Aster infirmus; whorled wood aster, Aster acuninatus; silverrod, Solidago bicolor; and cowbane, Oxypolis rigidior.

If you’re curious about identifying summer wildflowers you will need a guide. Photographic guides like Wildflowers of the Southern Mountains and Southern Appalachian Wildflowers are pretty comprehensive. But even local guides like Great Smoky Mountains Wildflowers will have most of the more showy wildflowers. 

If you’re going to get serious about wildflower identification you will want a more substantial guide such as “Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide” with its dichotomous key and line drawings. A hand lens will be required with Newcomb’s. A camera is always a good idea but most importantly bring a sense of wonder and you will never be disappointed.

Where to See Summer Wildflowers

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