Trillium erectum, the red trillium, also known as wake robin, purple trillium, bethroot, or stinking Benjamin, is a species of flowering plant in the family Melanthiaceae. The plant takes its common name "wake robin" by analogy with the European robin, which has a red breast heralding spring. Likewise Trillium erectum is a spring ephemeral whose life-cycle is synchronized with that of the forests in which it lives. It is native to the eastern United States and eastern Canada from northern Georgia to Quebec and New Brunswick.
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before experiencing natural erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east–west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines and valleys oriented in opposition to most highways and railroads running east–west.
Houstonia caerulea, commonly known as azure bluet, Quaker ladies, or bluets, is a perennial species in the family Rubiaceae. It is native to eastern Canada and the eastern United States. It is found in a variety of habitats such as cliffs, alpine zones, forests, meadows and shores of rivers or lakes.
Houstonia (bluet) is a genus of plants in the family Rubiaceae. Many species were formerly classified, along with other genera since segregated elsewhere, in a more inclusive genus Hedyotis.
Eurybia surculosa, commonly known as the creeping aster, is an herbaceous perennial in the composite family that was previously treated in the genus Aster. It is native to the eastern United States where it is found in sandy soils along the coastal plain, though when E. compacta is also present, it exists farther inland in the southern Appalachian Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau. Although the species is not seriously threatened, it is locally endangered in Virginia and Alabama. The flowers, which have bluish violet ray florets and pale yellow disc florets that eventually turn purplish, emerge in summer and persist into the fall.
Eurybia chlorolepis, commonly known as the mountain wood aster, mountain aster, or Appalachian heartleaf aster, is a perennial, herbaceous plant native to the southeastern United States. It is present only at relatively high elevations in the Appalachian mountains. Although it is not considered seriously threatened due to a large number of sites in some of its range, it is often locally endangered and possibly extirpated in the south of its range.
In the central and southern Appalachian Mountains of Eastern North America, a cove is a small valley between two ridge lines that is closed at one or both ends.
Houstonia longifolia, commonly known as long-leaved bluet or longleaf summer bluet, is a perennial plant in the family Rubiaceae. It can be found throughout most of the Eastern United States and Canada. It has been reported from every state east of the Mississippi River except Delaware, plus North Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, with isolated populations in Kansas and Texas. Also, all Canadian provinces from Quebec to Alberta. It prefers upland woods in poor, dry, often sandy soil, blooming from June to August.
The southern Appalachian spruce–fir forest is an ecoregion of the temperate coniferous forests biome, a type of montane coniferous forest that grows in the highest elevations in the southern Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States.
Buckleya distichophylla, commonly called piratebush, is a flowering plant in the family Santalaceae, native to the Southern United States. It is a rare plant, found only in sporadic mountainous areas of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Houstonia purpurea is a species of flowering plant in the coffee family known by the common names Venus's pride, woodland bluet, and purple bluet. It is native to the eastern United States from eastern Texas and Oklahoma east to Florida and Pennsylvania, with scattered populations in Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, New York State and New England.
Clintonia umbellulata, commonly known as white clintonia or speckled wood-lily, is a species of flowering plant in the lily family Liliaceae. The specific epithet umbellulata means "umbelled," which refers to the shape of the plant’s inflorescence.
Geum geniculatum is a species of flowering plant in the rose family known by the common name bent avens. It is endemic to the southern Appalachian Mountains in the United States, where it occurs on only three mountains: Grandfather Mountain and Rich Mountain in North Carolina and Roan Mountain straddling the North Carolina-Tennessee border.
A cataract bog is a rare ecological community formed where a permanent stream flows over a granite outcropping. The sheeting of water keeps the edges of the rock wet without eroding the soil; in this precarious location no tree or large shrub can maintain a roothold. The result is a narrow, permanently wet, sunny habitat.
Clethra acuminata, the mountain pepper bush, is a shrub native to the Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern United States. It has been reported from the states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, primarily from deciduous forests at elevations of 500–1,400 m (1,600–4,600 ft).
Houstonia canadensis, common name Canadian summer bluet, is a plant species native to the United States and Canada. It has been reported from Ontario, Saskatchewan, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, western Virginia, and mountainous regions of western North Carolina, western South Carolina, and northern Georgia.
Houstonia humifusa, commonly called matted bluet, is a plant species in the coffee family (Rubiaceae). It is native to the United States, where it is found in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. It is typically found in sandy areas, or sometimes over gypsum.
Houstonia micrantha, the southern bluet, is a plant species in the coffee family.
Krigia montana, known as Mountain dwarfdandelion, is a North American species of plants in the sunflower family. It is native to the Great Smoky Mountains and other nearby peaks in the southern Appalachians of Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Georgia. It is found on cliffs and outcrops at high elevations.
Hypericum frondosum, the cedarglade St. Johnswort or golden St. John's wort, is a species of flowering plant in the St. John's wort family, Hypericaceae. It is native to the central and southeastern United States in dry, rocky habitats.
