Hunkered down for the long winter, wrapped in multiple layers and prepared for the cold, I have a lot in common with the flower and leaf buds of woody plants.

At the highest elevations of the Southern Appalachians grow two evergreen trees that give the Balsam Mountains their name — red spruce (Picea rubens) and Fraser fir (Abies fraseri).

Creeping along the forest floor is a group of native plants that look like mosses, but aren’t mosses.

Whoever first wrote down the phrase, “You reap what you sow” was definitely not a farmer or gardener. I’ve started following that phrase with, “…if you’re lucky.”

Want to hear a corny joke about an oak tree? That was it. 

This time of year, as the wind rustles the leaves and the shadows begin to elongate as the sun lingers lower on the horizon, the veil between the worlds seems to grow thinner and thinner.

Every year at the beginning of fall, an amazing thing happens in North America, and the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

No matter where you are in the world, if you encounter a plant that has a square stem and opposite leaf arrangement — when two leaves grow out of the stem at the same place, but on opposing sides — it is most likely a member of the mint family (Lamiaceae). 

Among my favorite plants to teach to children is jewelweed (Impatiens capensis & I. pallida).

Right now, throughout Southern Appalachia, and especially along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Balsam Gap in either direction, one of the most beautiful and iconic flowers in all of Appalachia is in bloom.