Fall Flowers - Roadsides - Yellow and Orange
Grass-leaved Golden Aster; Heterotheca graminifolia
Aster Family Height: 16 - 40 inches September 18, 2005 This plant blooms in late fall. It is common growing along trails and roadsides. The leaves are silvery-looking due to the silky hairs. It was a long time before I realized this plant was NOT a type of grass! I was surprised to see the yellow flowers! Perennial
Maximilian's Sunflower; Helianthus maximilianii
Knoxville, TN (Ijams Nature Center) Sept. 24, 2008 I was excited to find this huge sunflower blooming in a field at Ijams Nature Center during a school field trip. This makes plant #2124 on my Wildflower Lifelist! These plants can grow up to 10' in height. This one was down low because it was weighted down by the numerous flowers.
Skunk Goldenrod; Solidago glomerata
Mount Leconte, Great Smoky Mountains National Park September 1, 2006 This plant was blooming at over 6500' near the top of Mt. Leconte. I know to the folks in the western states, that elevation doesn't seem too much, but it is the second highest elevation in Tennessee. I didn't notice a skunky odor to this plant, but I didn't molest the leaves to crush them to see if they have a smell! It's not nice (or legal!) to abuse plants in the National Park! :) Perennial Where seen: Great Smoky Mountains National Park Mt. Leconte map...
Mountain Krigia; Krigia montana
Mount Leconte, Great Smoky Mountains National Park September 1, 2006 At first glance a hiker might dismiss this as just another plain old Dandelion. I wouldn't have known what it was if I hadn't read about it in the Leconte Lodge. It grows in only the high elevations, so it takes some work to see this flower. My husband and I hiked a little over 11 miles on this trip. It was worth the aching knees to get 5 new flowers for this website and 1 new one for my lifelist! I also found this flower blooming on Roan Mountain on 10-9-06.
Ozark Tickseed Sunflower; Bidens polylepis
Aster Family Oak Ridge, TN Sept. 5, 2008 I paid dearly for taking this photo, I have been itching for over a week after getting into a bunch of chiggers! :(
Inflated Bladderwort; Urticularia inflata
Aquatic Carnivorous!
Prairie Golden Aster; Heterotheca camporum
Aster Family Height: 16 - 40 inches September 18, 2005 This is a common wildflower in the fall. It brightens many a roadside in September. It has small white hairs and alternate leaves. Perennial Where seen: Oak Ridge
Maximilian's Sunflower plant
(close-up)
Purple-headed Sneezeweed; Helenium flexuosum
Aster Family These flowers have purple disk flowers. Sneezeweeds get their name from an unusual practice of early settlers. People once thought sneezing could expel the "evil spirits" which they believed caused illnesses. The dried leaves of the sneezeweeds were sniffed up the nose to cause sneezing. Ironically, their sneezing probably spread germs to make even more people sick! Perennial Where seen: Great Smoky Mountains NP, Frozen Head SP
Narrow-leaf Sunflower; Helianthus angustifolius
Aster Family I found these blooming in late September in Midtown, TN during a fieldtrip I was conducting at a school. This is a very common plant in the areas where it grows. Perennial Where seen: Midway, Great Smoky Mountains NP
Creeping Cucumber; Melothria pendula
September 9, 2006 I had just finished leading a fall wildflower hike at the University of Tennessee Arboretum for 65 people and I decided to take one last look on my own. Due to the recent rains, the rock garden was weedy and overgrown. When I spotted this small yellow flower growing on a vine with green, oval-shaped fruits I recognized it as a type of wild cucumber. Creeping Cucumber is a dioecious plant, it has only female or male flowers, this one is obviously a female! Most likely an annual Where seen: University of Tennessee Arboretum
Roan Mountain Goldenrod; Solidago roanensis
Aster Family Roan Mountain, TN / NC October 9, 2006 I photographed this goldenrod at the trailhead of Carter's Gap on Roan Mountain.
Small-headed Sunflower; Helianthus microcephalus
Haw Ridge Greenway trails September 10, 2006 I "paid" for this photo with a bunch of chiggers in some uncomfortable areas!
Canada Goldenrod; Solidago canadensis
Aster Family Goldenrods drive me crazy to try to identify! They are a lovely addition to the autumn landscape. The insect on the flowers is a moth. Perennial Where seen: Oak Ridge Greenways, Great Smoky Mountains NP, widespread
Autumn Sneezeweed; Helenium autumnale
Aster Family I found this plant blooming on the lake shore at Big Ridge State Park in early September. Perennial Where seen: Great Smoky Mountains NP, Big Ridge State Park, Oak Ridge, Warriors' Path SP
Grass-leafed Golden-Aster; Heterotheca graminifolia
Aster Family The long, slender leaves of this plant have smooth silver hairs which give it the appearance of a silvery grass, but it is another "DYC" (Darned Yellow Composite!). Perennial Where seen: Great Smoky Mountains NP, Frozen Head SP, Laurel-Snow Pocket Wilderness {Formerly known as Pityopsis graminifolia; Chrysopsis graminifolia}
flowers Ok, I have to admit I am not a grass person, so I'm not even going to try to identify this. I'm putting this photo on my site just to show what grass flowers look like. The stamens are the yellow, dangling parts. They produce light, dry pollen that blows in the air to the pistils on a nearby plant. The light brown anthers have already deposited their pollen and have dried up (males are expendible in the floral world!). The pistils are the fuzzy little white parts. I found these blooming at the Jefferson Middle School Cedar Barrens.
Showy Goldenrod ; Solidago speciosa
Aster Family Oak Ridge, TN September 7, 2008
This is the Poster that advertised my Fall Wildflower Hike at the University of Tennessee Arboretum. The 2008 hike was the third time I have led one there. About 70 people attended the hike and learned about the beautiful wildflowers that bloom in our area in autumn.
Jerusalem Artichoke; Helianthus tuberosus
Aster Family The leaves of this plant are alternate, rough, and scratchy. Notice the long bracts of the buds. These are very showy flowers along the roadsides. Perennial Where seen: Great Smoky Mountains NP, Oak Ridge
Aster Family These composite flowers usually do not have "petals" (ray flowers). The flowers are not very showy, they could be easy to bypass. You might not see them when they go to seed either, but if you pass by too closely you'll probably take a few seeds home with you! The seeds have 2 sharp barbed prongs that stick into clothing. Annual Where seen: Oak Ridge Greenways, Great Smoky Mountains NP, Warriors' Path SP
Inflated Bladderwort; Urticularia inflata
Bladderwort Family Aquatic Carnivorous! Rare - Species of concern in TN I was very excited to find this rare wildflower blooming in the lake at Pickett State Park in early September. It is a very unusual plant because it is carnivorous! The submersed leaves have small (pinhead-sized)trigger-haired bladders that pull tiny aquatic organisms inside to digestion them. I apologize for the lousy quality of this photo, I was working under some pretty bad conditions for photography. I didn't want to put my new tripod into the water or the thick mud on the bank, so I had to hand-hold the camera. It didn't help that I had a crowd of people standing along the wall behind me speculating if I was going to fall in! I did slip part of my foot into the lake at one point, thank goodness for Gore-tex boots! Perennial Where seen: Pickett SP
Silverling; Paronychia argyrocoma
Pink Family Grandfather Mountain, NC October 10, 2006 This was not photographed in Tennessee, but it does grow in the higher elevations of our mountains. At first I wasn't sure there were any flowers on the plants, they were at the end of their blooming period. It was truly amazing that these plants could survive at all, considering how many thousands of feet trample over the rocks where they live. They snuggle down into the cracks between the rocks near the swinging mile-high bridge on Grandfather Mountain.