Mountain Flowers of New Hampshire

Sheep Laurel

Common Wood Sorrel

 
Spring is a beautiful time in New Hampshire's mountains. Along the trail through field and wood nature puts on a color show of delicately-patterned wildflowers. And the show continues into summer and fall, although less exuberant, with new and different variations. The flowers, of course, are interested in reproduction; but for the passing hiker, it seems the show is just for him or her. Those who do not rush too fast up the trail to the magnificent summit vista discover another more subtle vista along the way.

Some flowers are very small, such as Blue-eyed Grass with its half-inch diameter blossom. This flower is so precise in its detailed perfection that when I first came upon it I wished I had a magnifying glass with which to explore more closely. Other flowers are larger and so numerous they paint the mountainside in color when nature gives them the nod and it is their turn to preen. Sheep Laurel is like this -- an individual flower is nothing special, but come July when masses are in bloom together the landscape is dressed in pink.

Blue-eyed Grass

Yellow Rattle

 
People are not the only thing flowers attract. Pollinators, especially insects, are the intended audience and fly in for lunch in abundance. The most interesting, from our point of view, are butterflies, which add their own unique beauty to the flowers they visit. But there are other strange and interesting little bugs that can be discovered by the determined and curious observer.

After the flower completes its transient life, it wilts and is replaced by a fruit -- the end goal of the whole process. Sometimes the fruit is more noticeable than the flower, such as Blue-bead Lily whose flower is obscure (small and yellow-green) but whose fruit is a striking metallic-blue sphere. Hikers who miss the flower in May can't help but notice the fruit in July. Other fruits are edible (be sure you know which before sampling!), such as blackberry, raspberry and blueberry. In the right season, at the right location, my hiking plans have sometimes been sabotaged by the more pressing opportunity to stop and snack.

Some of my hiking friends have gotten deeply into wildflower identification. What starts as a simple question "what flower is that?" grows into a curiosity about nature, then into a challenging voyage of education. If you would like to know more about the flowers you see in New Hampshire's mountains, I recommend the excellent pocket guide Wildflowers of the White Mountains by John Hession and Valerie Michaud. You can also see more NH mountain flowers on my website at www.nhmountainhiking.com.

Highbush Blackberry

Fringed Polygala
 

Common Fleabane

Ragged Robin