As the spring wildflowers begin their annual bloom here in North Georgia, botanists of all stripes are out for the final day of looking for the stark white blooms of the bloodroot and the Dutchman’s Breeches for the Georgia Botanical Society’s 40th annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage.
One of the places the pilgrimage traveled over Northwest Georgia this weekend was the Lock and Dam Park on Black’s Bluff Road, where organizer Russell Ware took a dozen plant peepers for a “roadside botany” field trip.
Along the trail, Ware pointed out blooms like the Solomon Seal, which amateur botanist Gail Russell said would turn from white to a dark blue or black by the end of the season. She likened trips like this to seeing a flock of birds passing during the changing of the seasons.
“You have to take full advantage of it while it’s here,” she said.
Malcolm Hodges, another on the trip, said the reason he enjoyed the field trips was because “the early spring flowering is always great.”
“The nice thing about the pilgrimage is it allows you to be lead to the best places to see wildflowers blooming throughout the state,” he said.
On Friday, a large group tour traveled to Cloudland Canyon State Park to look for blooming flowers, and Saturday other tours took groups to Armuchee Elementary School’s nature trail, the Pocket Recreation Area and Sloppy Floyd State Park in Chattooga County.
The groups met back in Rome after a day of hiking and observing nature for a banquet at Trinity United Methodist Church, followed up by a lecture from guest speaker Alan Weakly.
The last time the pilgrimage came to Rome was 1995, and Ware thought it was time to explore the Northwest Georgia area again after a 14 year hiatus.
“We pick one area we want to tour every year from either North, Middle or South Georgia,” he said. “It worked out well for us since I know the area so well.”
