The Glory of God All Around You- A Path of Purple Through the Cumberland Mountains

If only we could have added a backdrop of a castle, the hike we took yesterday would have been every bit as beautiful as one through the Bavarian Alps. Well, the Bavarian foothills perhaps. It was a beautiful Sunday, with that wonderful, no-humidity air and bluest of skies that means it is mandatory to be outside, so we headed out for a hike my daughter and family had taken before to a place called “Frozen Head” in the Cumberland Mountains.

Although they have only lived here a few months, they had been to this particular spot before, in search of their favorite habitat, mountain waterfalls, but the leaves hadn’t been out then. Now, it was awash in that wake you up, brilliant green, plus, how fortuitous, we arrived in the midst of “Wildflower Weeks”. In addition to the vibrant green leaves and bright blue sky was a pathway lined with a profusion of purple flowers. Violets, Wild Geraniums and Crested Dwarf Iris, a diminutive Iris that is found along wooded hillsides and ravines, which describes exactly what we were walking along, made up the bulk of the purple flowers.



There was also an abundance of Trillium, wonderful spring flowers that are pretty rare on the Cape for they like a richer soil. Here they had the Large Flowered Trillium, which starts white and ends up pink as it ages. The underground roots of these were ground by Indians for medicinal uses, but today these are protected plants, no picking, grinding, eating etc. They also had some of the more rare Yellow Trillium along the path and a Purple Trillium enchantingly also known as Stinking Benjamin. Which is a clue to its odor, think skunk cabbage or any other plant that wants to attract flies as their pollinator and knows the closer to rotting meat smell, the better. Thankfully, these weren’t that abundant along our path.

To seal the deal of feeling like “Paradise Lost”, the air was full of butterflies. Tiger Swallowtails and Black Swallowtails flitted along ridge lines and over pools of water. But it was this medium sized brownish black butterfly that I can not seem to identify, that was there in droves. That was the magical part. Watching my granddaughter, who was finally let out of the backpack when we reached the waterfalls, tossing rocks in the water with so many butterflies circling around her. Melted my naturalist/Nonna heart!



And doesn’t that drive you crazy, when you see about a million of something, and you think, surely I can identify this when I get back, its just brownish black after all, but NO, after Goggling images of “medium brown butterfly”, “butterflies of Eastern TN”, “wood nymphs” etc, (eeks that brought up pictures I never expected, Make that “wood nymph” butterfly!) I couldn’t find it! I didn’t bring any of my insect books along with me, (What an oversight! Never leave home without it, for I have seen so many cool bee, wannabes that clearly aren’t bees but are nectar eating something or others and other insects I wish I could look for.) I will, however, eventually get to a library and see if I can find some local TN natural history books and will amend this later with info if I can. But whatever they were, they are doing fine, bazillions of them, and making bazillions more is probably what this whole congregating thing was about.

So to all of this, on this Sunday, I say, “Thank you God!” That I was here, with them, at this time, Thank you.