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.
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.
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.
