Lakehouse Portrait Co. / Appalachian Botanicals

Appalachian Botanicals

Native Appalachian plants I found along lakes, banks, creeks, coves, and forest edges—and the water, stone, light, and surrounding growth I remember with them.

The flowers came first. The habitats stayed with me.

Shop botanical canvas Follow the field record

A collection of plants I stopped for

I remember each plant with the place around it.

I found each one by stopping the boat, walking a bankline, or following a creek because something made me want to look closer.

Cumberland Azalea above sandstone and green water. Great Laurel making shade over a clear creek. Umbrella Magnolia leaves catching rain light. Butterfly Milkweed feeding fritillaries along a sunny edge.

I am an explorer first. I follow what catches my eye, then come home and learn what it means. The artwork comes later.
Detail of Cumberland Azalea orange blooms against purple sandstone
Cumberland Azalea / bloom
Detail of Great Laurel blossoms and reflected creek stones
Great Laurel / creek light
Detail of Umbrella Magnolia flower and green filtered rain light
Umbrella Magnolia / bloom
Detail of fritillary butterfly and orange Butterfly Milkweed flowers
Butterfly Milkweed / gathering

What I found next

Finding the plant is usually the beginning.

I photograph what made me stop, figure out what I am looking at, and keep following whatever it leads to. In the Color Guide, I start with the color. In Field Notes, I tell the story of the encounter. In Community Science, I show how Nathan and I document and identify what we find.

Greater Tickseed blooming beside reflected water in an Appalachian cove

The color that made me stop

Appalachian Color Guide

The color is what made me stop. Greater Tickseed opened bright yellow beside dark reflected water. Then I started looking at the flower, the leaves, the season, and the cove around it.

Explore the Appalachian Color Guide
Wide field view of Cumberland Azalea flowering across a wooded Appalachian rock bank

Appalachian Field Notes

Read what happened after I found the Cumberland Azaleas: the photographs, what I learned, and the memories people shared about places where they had seen them years ago.

Read the Cumberland Azalea field story
Common Jewelweed growing along a rocky lake edge with standing snags

Community Science Journal

Nathan and I photograph what we find, add the observations to iNaturalist, and see what other people can help us identify.

Explore the Community Science record

What happens when I find one

Curiosity comes first.

Each piece started with something I noticed from the water. I stopped what I was doing and went to see it more closely.

Sometimes that means pulling the boat toward a shoreline. Sometimes it means climbing a steep bank to get photographs. Sometimes it means coming home and spending hours trying to understand what I found.

When people started telling me about places where they remembered seeing Cumberland Azaleas decades ago, I got even more interested. I started looking at the sandstone beneath them, their pollinators, why they were growing there, and the memories other people carried.

Plants in place

Once I know the plant's name, I start noticing the rest.

I look at what kind of rock it is growing over, how wet the ground is, what else is blooming, and which insects are using it.

In the artwork, the plants stay in those Appalachian habitats: along creeks, on sandstone banks and ridges, beneath forest canopies, and beside the pollinators gathering around them.

Cumberland Azalea Rhododendron cumberlandense Cumberland Azalea is a deciduous native azalea of the southeastern mountains, with orange to red-orange flowers that open in summer. It can be confused with Flame Azalea, but Cumberland Azalea usually blooms later, after the leaves have expanded, and often reads redder. Botanist E. Lucy Braun formally described the red azalea of the Cumberlands in 1941. It grows along acidic slopes, banks, and woodland edges. Here, I kept it on steep purple sandstone above emerald water, where the lake light changes how the orange reads.
Great Laurel Rhododendron maximum Great Laurel is a broadleaf evergreen rhododendron that grows thick along Appalachian creeks. The white blooms catch your eye first, while the leathery leaves darken the creek above moss, ferns, and water half hidden beneath the branches.
Umbrella Magnolia Magnolia tripetala Umbrella Magnolia is a native understory tree of rich woods, coves, and ravines, named for the way its long leaves cluster near the ends of branches like an umbrella. Beetles pollinate the flowers, which makes the whole plant feel even older and stranger in the best way. Its gigantic leaves stay with me most: a broad canopy, filtered rain light, and magnolia shade that feels almost prehistoric.
Butterfly Milkweed Asclepias tuberosa Butterfly Milkweed is a bright orange native milkweed of sunny, open places. Butterflies, bees, and other pollinators feed there. Here, fritillaries gather among the milkweed, grasses, black-eyed Susans, stone, and reflected water along a sunny summer edge.
Cumberland Azalea on Purple Sandstone artwork with orange blooms above emerald water
Full artwork
Close detail of Cumberland Azalea orange blooms against dark purple sandstone
Azalea bloom detail
Close detail of Cumberland Azalea, purple sandstone, and emerald reflected water
Sandstone and water detail

01 / Sandstone bankline

Cumberland Azalea on Purple Sandstone

Cumberland Azalea, Rhododendron cumberlandense

They are amazing. I was fascinated before I understood how specific this plant was. The more I learned, the more fascinated I became.

Bright orange azalea blooms meet purple sandstone and green lake water here. The artwork grew from what happened after that first encounter: research, conversations, and people remembering places where they had seen Cumberland Azaleas decades ago.

Habitat noteCumberland Azalea is a Southern Appalachian endemic. Here it belongs to steep rock, reflected water, and the kind of bank that makes you stop and look up.

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Follow the encounter in Field Notes and the Color Guide.

02 / Clear creek shade

Great Laurel Over Clear Creek

Great Laurel, Rhododendron maximum

We always called them rhododendrons. I am amazed by the native white blooms, but the real pull is the place around them: mosses and ferns, dark creek edges, water half hidden under evergreen branches.

Great Laurel can make a creek feel secret even when you are standing right beside it. The creek gets darker and more hidden under the branches. I love that as much as the white flowers.

Habitat noteGreat Laurel often forms dense evergreen cover along creeks. White blooms appear above moss, ferns, filtered light, and water hidden beneath the branches.

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Great Laurel Over Clear Creek artwork with white rhododendron blooms above clear Appalachian water
Full artwork
Close detail of clear creek stones and reflected Appalachian water
Creek stone detail
Close detail of Great Laurel blooms over clear creek reflections
Laurel bloom detail
Beneath Ancient Leaves umbrella magnolia artwork with large green leaves, ferns, and filtered rain light
Full artwork
Close detail of Umbrella Magnolia flower, ferns, and filtered green light
Magnolia bloom detail
Close detail of Umbrella Magnolia leaves and rain light in green Appalachian understory
Canopy detail

03 / Shelter under leaves

Beneath Ancient Leaves

Umbrella Magnolia, Magnolia tripetala

Umbrella Magnolias are magical to me and always have been. Nathan and I have waited out the rain under them, and that memory is really the center of the artwork.

Waiting under one feels different from waiting under a porch or roof. It is wet, green, temporary, and alive.

They rise as straight sticks with no leaves, then build a massive canopy out of gigantic leaves. In the artwork, rain light and ferns fill the cove beneath them.

Habitat noteUmbrella Magnolia has some of the largest leaves of any native eastern tree. They are broad enough that Nathan and I have waited out the rain beneath them.

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04 / Pollinator gathering place

Where the Fritillaries Gather

Butterfly Milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa, with Great Spangled Fritillaries

Fritillaries gather where Butterfly Milkweed blooms. I wanted them doing what they would actually be doing: feeding among the flowers.

I kept the rest of that sunny summer edge around them: grasses, black-eyed Susans, rocks, and blue-green reflected water. It is the brightest artwork in the group.

Habitat noteButterfly Milkweed gives native pollinators a summer food source across Appalachia. Fritillaries are among the butterflies that visit its orange blooms.

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Where the Fritillaries Gather butterfly milkweed artwork with orange blooms, butterflies, rocks, and blue-green water
Full artwork
Close detail of a fritillary butterfly near orange butterfly milkweed blooms
Fritillary detail
Close detail of Butterfly Milkweed blooms, grasses, and reflected blue-green water
Milkweed and stone detail

Water is doing the work

Water keeps showing up with the plants.

Water changes the color of everything around it. It cools the white Great Laurel blooms, turns green beneath Cumberland Azalea, moves as blue-green light through milkweed and grasses, and filters as rain through Umbrella Magnolia leaves.

It shows up differently in every artwork: clear creek light, emerald lake reflection, rain beneath a canopy, and the sunny edge of the water.

Great Laurel detail with white bloom, clear creek stones, and reflected blue-green water
Clear creek water and bloom detail

Matte canvas prints

Four native Appalachian botanical prints.

Each print is made on matte canvas with finished wrapped sides. The available sizes preserve as much of the original composition as possible.

Prefer paper? Each Appalachian Botanicals painting is also available as an archival paper giclée. Shop botanical paper giclées.

Rabbit in the Rhododendron artwork with a rabbit among blossoms, ferns, moss, and woodland foliage

Appalachian plants throughout Lakehouse Goods

Appalachian plants grow throughout Lakehouse Goods.

Rhododendron grows around the rabbit. Sassafras shades the chipmunk. Muscadine vines surround the fox. Beech roots rise behind the Carolina Wren. Rabbit in the Rhododendron, Chipmunk Under the Sassafras, Red Fox in the Muscadine Vines, and Carolina Wren in the Beech Roots are available as archival matte Art Prints, wall tapestries, and Art Puzzles.

Rabbit in the Rhododendron
Art Print Wall tapestry Art Puzzle
Chipmunk Under the Sassafras
Art Print Wall tapestry Art Puzzle
Red Fox in the Muscadine Vines
Art Print Wall tapestry Art Puzzle
Carolina Wren in the Beech Roots
Art Print Wall tapestry Art Puzzle
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What stayed with me

Native plants, remembered in place.

These four stayed with me after I got home: orange azalea on sandstone, white rhododendron over a creek, magnolia leaves broad enough to wait beneath in rain, and milkweed where fritillaries gathered. That is what I wanted to keep in this collection: each plant together with the water, stone, shade, and surrounding growth that made me stop.

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