orchid hunters' gold

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Yellow-Fringed Orchid

This is one remarkably beautiful flower that I have looked for but not been able to find in the Smokies but that's not true for the orchid hunters, Lynne and Bob Davis. 

Lynne recently e-mailed me, "Bob and I went back to Spruce Flats Falls Saturday to get some better pictures of some of the flowers we saw last weekend."

"On the way back from the falls, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a trail we didn’t recognize.  It was narrow and steep, and it kept going further uphill.  Just as the trail started to level off, we found a single plant of Yellow-Fringed Orchid (they’re really orange-sherbet orange).  

"Beautiful!" 

"A few feet further on, we came to a trail junction with a single small post.  One side of the post had “M” on it and one side had “T”.  And within a few feet of the junction, there were more Yellow-Fringed Orchids!  After taking pictures of all of them, we chose the direction where we could hear the sound of the river.  Along this path, too, were more Yellow-Fringed Orchids.  After a while, this path sort of petered out, and we voted to re-trace our steps.  We counted at least 12 plants of the orchids on the way back. We got out of the woods just as a light rain was starting."

Thanks, Lynne and Bob. Great story! 

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