Native Plants at Blackberry Blossom

Are you looking for a place which has an abundance of beautiful native plants to study? We are fortunate to live in such a place and we'd like to share this beauty with others who also share our respect for rare plants and native wildflowers.

Pink Lady's Slipper, one of the gorgeous orchids which grow in the woodlands of Blackberry Blossom.

This orchid is also known as the "Moccasin Flower" because of it's moccasin-like shape. It also favors a part of the male anatomy and is where the word "orchid" comes from. Interesting and unusual, huh?

At Blackberry Blossom Farm, we've discovered a variety of native plants including orchids, medicinal herbs, wildflowers, mosses, ferns and lichens which are part of the southern Appalachian culture that we embrace. The Cherokee National Forest is home to hundreds of these native plants. We hope our efforts to preserve these species will encourage other nature lovers to join us as we pass our enthusiasm on to the next generation, who will help all of us protect them.

When Blackberry Blossom Farm and Campground opens to the public, our goal is to allow other people to follow our nature trails and enjoy the wildflowers as their seasons bring out their natural beauty. We don't collect rare native plants from the wild, but enjoy them where they pop through the moist forest floor. That is what we invite you to do also. Take pictures, take home memories, leave everything else here in it's home.

Downy Rattlesnake Plantain

Also an orchid, these plants are beautiful year-round with their evergreen "rattlesnake skin" leaves. The dried seed pod also has the distinction of looking like a rattle on the poisonous Timber Rattlesnake who shares these woods. This orchid is quite common but still a delight to find.

Solomon's Seal, a lovely, graceful plant with a tropical-looking flair.

Named Solomon's Seal because the roots have scars said to resemble wax seals. It is regarded as an edible plant root, as is False Solomon's Seal, which grows in the same habitat and looks similar but shows it's blooms on top instead of hanging underneath.

These plants, along with Ramps, Asparagus, and surprisingly, Yuccas and Greenbriar's, are in the Lily family.

The medicinal native plant herbs, which have been collected by mountain people for centuries, grow without effort here in the east Tennessee mountains. Over the years, irresponsible over-collection have made many of these native plants become endangered and protection is necessary to ensure their survival in the wild.

Bloodroot

Oops! Found growing in some landscape Mondo Grass. This native plant needs a better spot to grow and will be transplanted to a more suitable site after the seed pod releases it's seeds and we'll capture them for propagation.

This native plant is in the Poppy family and is one of the first welcoming flowers to bloom after a cold stark winter. It's beautiful white waxy flower only lasts a few days. The root has been dug for generations by Native Americans for lung ailments and as use as a natural dye. Appalachian people used it for basket, wool and egg dyeing.

Indian Pipe

Lack of chlorophyll makes this flowering plant look like a ghostly mushroom, but it's not a fungus. Unable to produce it's own food, it gathers nourishment from the organic decaying stuff in the soil where it lives. It sports scales instead of leaves and is in the Wintergreen family.

Cherokee legend says that this plant grows where Cherokee clan leaders once argued and smoked a peace pipe before the argument was settled. The Cherokee god destroyed the council and to remind them to settle their differences, this plant comes up as a white pipe. We've found several arrowheads in our creeks and fields, so we know Native Americans, Cherokee being the main tribe, inhabited this area for some time whether they passed through while hunting or stayed for extended periods.

Lichens, like these beauties, abound on trees and rocks.

Not really a native "plant", but the combination of a fungus and an algae, the Smooth Rock Tripe below grows VERY slowly on (mostly) limestone and granite rocks facing south. One source we heard said it only grows an inch every 100 years. It's been used for centuries for the purple dye for wool it produces, called Orchil. But unless found already detached from the rock and lying on the ground, it should never be harvested for any purpose. It's also said to be a survival food and can be eaten if boiled. Looks a little like tree ear mushrooms I've use in Chinese cooking!

As we walk through our Cherokee Forest home, the size of the boulders amaze us. Huge rounded humps pop out where the imagination can run wild and pretend to see petroglyphs painted on the smooth boulder sides or tribes of Native Americans camped nearby. This rock with the Smooth Rock Tripe looks like an Easter Island statue with a peeling mudbath...okay, back to native plants.

American Ginseng

The crown jewel of the mountain medicinal herbs. This native plant has brought such high prices that unscrupulous diggers will steal this plant from private property within touching distance of a man's house. Sadly, it's becoming rare in the wild and even with conservation practices and laws in place, the future of this native plant beauty probably lies in private propagation. This reminds me of similar practices such as herding wild buffalo and horses onto ranches for their survival. Needful, but sad.

Mayapple

This large-leafed native plant looks like foot high umbrellas on the forest floor where it grows in patches. The single flower is white and hangs underneath the "umbrella" leaf. The resulting fruit is about the size of a large rose hip and shaped like an apple. It's been used by mountain families to make jelly which has a slightly sweet but acidic light strawberry flavor. All other parts of this plant are deemed fatally toxic although the roots were used by Cherokee and Penobscot Indians for medicinal ailments for centuries. Another interesting future promise is the anti-cancer properties found in this plant and are being used to treat lung and breast cancer.

Morel Mushroom

What a surprise to find these edible mushrooms growing in the leaf litter of our forests at Blackberry Blossom Farm! We'd heard they were here, but not until we consistently started finding them were we convinced they were a steady and returning addition to our native plant food supply. For all you ever wanted to know about these incredible mushrooms including gathering techniques and recipes, visit The Great Morel.

Butter and Eggs, Yellow Toadflax

This beautiful yellow flower looks like a smug little snapdragon. I'd heard about it years prior from my mother-in-law before finally finding it in a parking lot in Boone, NC. Thinking it was a native plant, my mom & I "rescued" it from being trampled and planted it in a flower bed last summer. I was so excited when I saw it come up this year, knowing we were in for a treat of light yellow and darker yellow profusion of flowers, similar to a free-range egg cooked over medium.

Unfortunately, I also found out this year that it is listed as a non-native noxious weed and is hard to eradicate once established. It does provide food for butterflies and is a bee pollinator plant, but I have to weigh the long-term cost of introducing a plant that doesn't belong here. After years of pulling overgrown Bittersweet vine, which my mother-in-law planted as an ornamental, I fully know the longterm effects of planting non-native plant invasives. We're trying to become good stewards of our native plants and flowers of the Southern Appalachian home we live in, and that just doesn't fit comfortably into the plan.

I suppose Mr. Toadflax will need to go into a pot and we'll monitor the seed maturation to keep it from spreading by wind propagation.

As we add to this page, we'll share with you pictures and information about these gorgeous plants, their uses, and odd but interesting facts we've accumulated. Our goal is not to be "just another information page", but to present the information in a unique way that will stick with you and encourage you to come experience these plants for yourself!

For an extremely comprehensive and informative site for Tennessee Native Plants and Wildflowers, please visit our fellow Tennessean, Kris Light at East Tennessee Wildflowers and Hiking Trails. She also has the coolest science downloads for kids of any age. Great home school or teacher resource. She has beautiful photography of these wildflowers which you can own and enjoy year-round.

Another gorgeous place I love is Mark Peacock's site at Appalachian Treks and the lovely work of Lee Fierbaugh at From These Hills. Both of these are local folks talented beyond belief and their photography/blogs are havens where you'll get lost for hours reading the musings and enjoying the beautiful galleries of photos from our Southern Appalachian Mountains. So grab a nice cup of tea, put on that hammered dulcimer music and relax. This is truly like a spa treatment for your brain.

You're sure to fall in love with all of these artists work and feel the need to collect some from each.

For some inventive farm equipment Ed's built to fill a need on our Appalachian berry farm, check out Homemade Farm Equipment

Our Campground page will also interest you with more native plant pictures Blackberry Blossom Campground ,which will be opening soon!

Learn how we propagate plants for our nursery and farm at Plant Propagation at Blackberry Blossom.