Photographed plant encounters
Plants
Wildflowers, trees, ferns, and mosses from Kentucky’s Appalachian woods, creeks, and lake edges.
A curated plant field guide
Flowers, leaves, stems, and the places they grew.
Browse by habitat or search by common or scientific name. Know the color before the name? Browse the Color Guide →
Azure Bluet
Houstonia caeruleaFour powder-blue petals form tiny pinwheels around pinpoint yellow centers. Thread-thin stems lift the flowers only slightly above golden moss, curled brown leaves, and broad green foliage, making their powder-blue color feel both delicate and unmistakable.
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Blue Mistflower
Conoclinium coelestinumA whole colony of powder-blue flower heads drifts across fallen wood and layered summer green, with mauve buds waiting among the open blooms. An earlier close encounter showed the fuzzy blue-violet florets and cool gray-green leaves one cluster at a time.
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Buttonbush
Cephalanthus occidentalisOne open flower head radiates hundreds of slender pink-white styles from a warm coral center, creating a delicate sphere of pins. Smaller ivory-green globes wait nearby among red stems and broad, deeply veined leaves striped with afternoon sun.
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Cardinal Flower
Lobelia cardinalisTiered cardinal-red flowers climb a tall green stem, each narrow tube opening into sharp lower lips and curling side petals. Broad leaves frame the close views in saturated green; farther back, the complete flower spike rises against cream-gray stone, woodland shade, and the quiet water of the cove.
Early-August observation → · Second August observation →
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Common Jewelweed
Impatiens capensisThe blossom hangs like a small tangerine pouch, freckled with brick-red spots and tapering into a delicate curved spur. A honey-gold hood folds over the opening, while thin succulent stems and broad blue-green leaves soften the shaded lakeshore around it.
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Cucumber Root
Medeola virginianaA star-shaped whorl of smooth apple-green leaves opens above deep moss, each pointed blade marked by a fine central vein. Wet copper-brown leaves, decaying wood, and several different moss textures surround the small plant in a richly layered patch of forest floor. An October close view adds red color spreading around the center of the upper leaf whorl, while the outer tips remain green. The wider view follows both whorls above the fallen leaves.
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Cumberland Azalea
Rhododendron cumberlandenseApricot-orange flowers deepen to coral along their ruffled, starry edges, with long rust-red stamens reaching well beyond the petals. The loose clusters spill over a layered rock bank among fresh green leaves, gray ledges, and the darker foliage of the woods.
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Downy Lobelia
Lobelia puberulaTwo violet-blue flowers hang from a fine green stem, each bloom split into long narrow lobes with a small white opening at the center. The close views make the color feel electric; the wider view shows how small and easily missed the plant was against gray soil, dry leaves, and low green growth.
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Downy Rattlesnake Plantain
Goodyera pubescensA low rosette spreads across the leaves and bark, each dark green blade traced with a branching silver-white network. The October close view brings that fine pattern forward. Earlier photographs follow the slender flowering stems and the dry spike that remains later in the season.
See this entry in the Color Guide →July flowers → · July leaves → · September stalk & leaves → · October 13 observation →
Downy Yellow False Foxglove
Aureolaria virginicaA single yellow bell hangs beneath a vertical run of round chartreuse buds on a tall green stem. Against gray bark and a leaf-strewn slope, the small bloom is easy to miss until its clear yellow catches the eye.
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Dwarf St. John's Wort
Hypericum mutilumMinute butter-yellow flowers open into five-pointed stars above wiry green stems and paired narrow leaves. Resting across a hand, the plant’s true scale becomes clear against bright shoreline growth, scattered stone, and a damp woodland bank.
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Fire Pink
Silene virginicaScarlet flowers flare from the rocky forest floor, each five-petaled face split into long, deeply notched points. Their slender green stems thread through gray bark, weathered sticks, brown leaf litter, and the first soft green growth of the season.
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Ghost Pipe
Monotropa unifloraTranslucent ivory stems rise from russet leaf litter in waxy clusters, each one bent beneath a nodding, urn-shaped flower. Soft pink-beige shadows collect along the ridges and curled edges, while wet leaves, gray twigs, and dark soil deepen the surrounding floor.
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Goat's Rue
Tephrosia virginianaPea-shaped flowers combine a creamy pink upper petal with a deeper rose keel, the warm color concentrated at the end of a slender stem. Fine hairs soften the many narrow leaflets to silvery green above dry grass and mottled woodland light.
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Great Rhododendron
Rhododendron maximumBell-shaped flowers shade from pearl white to a light shell pink, their upper throats freckled with tawny green-brown spots. Thick evergreen leaves frame the close blooms, while the wider view returns the flower clusters to a dark creekside thicket.
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Greater Whipwort
Bazzania trilobataGlossy emerald shoots pack together in overlapping three-pointed fans, each one built from rows of minute scale-like leaves. Water beads across the surface and sinks into the narrow seams, sharpening the pattern from spring green highlights to forest-dark shadows.
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Hollow Joe-Pye Weed
Eutrochium fistulosumA tall burgundy-green stem carries long whorled leaves toward a cloud of dusty mauve flowers. The many fine florets soften into a pink haze against sunlit foliage, with darker tree trunks and a broad woodland canopy behind the plant.
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Lanceleaf Frogfruit
Phyla lanceolataSmall lavender-white flower heads punctuate a low tangle of narrow leaves between flat gray stones. Their rounded clusters sit almost at ground level, where damp cracks and the nearby waterline hold a pocket of green.
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Meadow Spikemoss
Selaginella apodaCool lime-green stems branch across wet stones in flat, repeating fans. Tiny overlapping leaves give every stem a finely scaled edge, while gray pebbles, dark twigs, and a few broad woodland leaves reveal how close this intricate patch lies to the ground.
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Mottled Wakerobin
Trillium discolorA tightly folded green bud rises from the center of three broad leaves marbled in dark and light green. The low plant sits like a small rosette in loose gray-brown soil, surrounded by curled oak leaves and broken twigs.
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Mountain Camellia
Stewartia ovataHeld toward a shaft of sun, one white flower opens from a leafy twig, its cupped petals surrounding a dense burst of butter-yellow stamens. The hand, glossy deep-green leaves, and blurred gray stone below keep the bloom connected to the wooded slope where it was growing.
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Mountain Laurel
Kalmia latifoliaClusters of dusty-pink buds open into porcelain-white cups brushed with blush. Each flower is patterned with burgundy pockets and curved stamens, set sharply against glossy, nearly black-green leaves at the wooded edge.
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Mountain Spleenwort
Asplenium montanumBlue-green fronds spill from damp sandstone in narrow, intricately divided fans. Their tiny rounded leaflets press against rust-streaked rock, silver-green lichen, and dark crevices, with wider views showing the fern repeated across the cool stone face.
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Multiflora Rose
Rosa multifloraLoose clusters of blush-white roses fill the leafy canopy, each five-petaled flower opening around a ring of warm golden stamens. Fresh chartreuse leaves, arching green canes, and higher branches place the blush-white blossoms in a dense wall of growth.
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New York Fern
Amauropelta noveboracensisOne fully opened fern-green frond fills the frame, broad through the middle and tapering cleanly at both ends. Its narrow leaflets divide into crisp, feathered lobes above dark moss, curled brown leaves, crossed twigs, and softly blurred ferns farther up the slope.
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Partridgeberry
Mitchella repensA single scarlet berry gleams beside paired green leaves and fine, bright moss. The October close view makes the round fruit and its small dark tip easy to see; earlier photographs follow the creeping stems through a wider patch of leaves, moss, and forest litter.
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Pink Lady's Slipper
Cypripedium acauleTwo broad, deeply ribbed leaves spread across brown forest litter beneath an upright stalk. Close September views make their ribbing clear against the low green groundcover. The earlier July photograph shows a post-bloom leaf pair, while a wider September view places another plant beside fallen, moss-covered wood.
July observation → · September leaves & stalk → · September woodland →
Red Maple
Acer rubrumGreen summer leaves spread in overlapping layers, their toothed lobes set off by slender red petioles and young reddish twigs. Seen within the shaded understory rather than in fall color, the tree is read through structure and contrast.
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Rosepink
Sabatia angularisWarm violet flowers with a pink cast gather in loose stars among fern fronds and layered summer green. Five narrow petals open around a small yellow-green center, while the woodland leaves range from bright chartreuse to deep shadow behind them.
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Sharpwing Monkeyflower
Mimulus alatusLavender-violet flowers open into soft two-lipped trumpets, their nearly white throats marked by a faint wash of purple. Water beads on sharply toothed green leaves and square stems, with dark soil, wet stone, and the shaded seep close behind.
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Southern Sneezeweed
Helenium flexuosumA rounded wine-brown disk rises above a skirt of clear yellow rays, each petal ending in three neat notches. The flower faces the lens on a slim green stem, with smaller blooms, wet-bank foliage, and softly blurred pink-purple plants behind it.
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Strawberry Bush
Euonymus americanusA bumpy pink fruit capsule hangs beneath narrow green leaves, split open to reveal glossy orange-coated seeds. The close view shows curled pink-red lobes around the dark interior. Farther back, scattered fruits appear as small red dots among slender stems, their bright color standing out against the green leaves and shaded woods.
Learn about Strawberry Bush → See this entry in the Color Guide →
Striped Wintergreen
Chimaphila maculataDark evergreen leaves rise from wet copper leaf litter, each pointed blade drawn with a bold silver-white midrib and branching veins. Cream-white nodding buds lift above the rosette in the foreground; beyond a mossy fallen log, Callie pauses among the gray trunks and looks back toward the camera.
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Thyme and Allied Mosses
PlagiomniumMinute bright-green shoots crowd across damp, dark substrate, their translucent leaves catching light like tiny panes. Fine stems, grit, and neighboring moss reveal the colony at its true, nearly threadlike scale.