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What's blooming in Bath, Highland
BY CHARLES GARRATT • STAFF WRITER
 | | Whether one sees the miters of church officials or a fanciful flock of red birds, the brilliant cardinal flower is one of the most spectacular of the late season wildflowers. (Recorder photo by Charles Garratt) |
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POOR FARM - Along the Jackson River and other creeks, ponds and streams, brilliant clumps of red cardinal flowers appear in late summer and often persist until a hard freeze.
Few other things in nature are as brilliant red as the cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis. The irregular, twolipped flowers are tubular with the upper portion in two lobes and the lower spreading into three parts. The flowers bloom from the bottom up in a terminal raceme, which can be 10 inches long at the top of a stem two to four feet tall.
Cardinal flower is found in wet locations over most of the United States. Europeans discovered cardinal flower in Canada and sent samples and seeds back to France in the 1620s. The name "cardinal flower" was in use by 1629.
The name is generally attributed to the similarity between the red of the flower and the red of a Roman Catholic Cardinal's miter. However, locally many people attribute the name to the bird-like shape of the flowers when seen from some angles and thus the similarity to the red cardinal bird.
Gardeners with wet rich soil along streams or ponds, natural or landscape-created, can grow cardinal flower from seed, nursery plants or divisions of the fibrous rooted crown. New plants can also be sprouted from cuttings before the flowers open.
Native Americans had many medicinal uses for cardinal flower. The plant contains many alkaloids considered to be poisonous and is not used medicinally now. The Meskwaki used cardinal flower as a ceremonial tobacco, throwing it to the wind to ward off violent storms.
Hummingbirds love the nectar of the bright red flowers. Deer will browse the young plants at times. Cardinal flower is not rare in the Highlands, but it is never common either. Occasionally large patches will occur along a stream or creek or beaver pond. One patch along the upper end of Little Back Creek is almost blindingly red some years.
The deep saturated red of cardinal flowers make it difficult to photograph, especially with digital cameras. Some adjustment to exposure is often necessary to keep the red from washing out all detail in the delicate petals.
Yellow ladies' tresses were in perfect bloom on Wilson Mountain this week and should last for up to another month as the lower flowers fade and the upper flowers open. The flowers of one yellow ladies' tresses plant distinctly smelled like vanilla, an orchid species native to Central America.
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