Saturday, January 24, 2009

Sun-Loving Prairie Wildflowers of Glennstone

Walking along the trails of ECWA's nature preserve at Glennstone, downstream from Durham, out towards Falls Lake, you will find many wildflowers that still flourish where trees have yet to cast their shadow. In the first photo is Carolina rose (Rosa carolina), a low-growing rose common at Glennstone. My most memorable encounter with this flower was in the middle of a very hot day when the landscape had already been parched by severe drought. Fortunately, I "stopped to smell the roses", and was rewarded by a fragrance sweet and soft, refreshing as a cool drink after a long trek through the desert.

Snowdrops, a kind of primrose, is another bright flower in May.

The last photo is of Round-Headed Bushclover, the native wildflower at Glennstone that I have encountered growing nowhere else in all my travels. It's discussed in a previous post on this website.

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