Trail expert Jim Parham’s latest guidebook shows hikers where to find native plants blooming throughout North Carolina’s mountains. The guide visits 59 routes on public lands including DuPont State Forest, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Home to more than 2,600 varieties of flowering plants, “our mountains in North Carolina,” Parham says, “are one of the best places in the world to observe wildflowers in their natural habitat.”
The idea for the book came in 2010 while he was researching a waterfall guidebook. “I was spending a lot of time in the woods, seeing lots of wildflowers and having to use multiple field guides to identify the ones I didn’t know. Eventually I realized I wanted to write a guide that not only got folks out on some great trails to interesting locations but put them in a place where they could learn about wildflowers and their habitats—not just by reading, but by doing.”
Complete driving and hiking directions, maps, color photos and information on wildflowers likely to be seen on each hike are included. “I wanted to delve,” Parham says, “into the different forest types, which are the key to understanding where wildflowers thrive and when they bloom—from grassy balds and rich coves to spruce-fir forests and high-elevation rock outcrops—and show hikers how to get to them.”
Wildflower Walks & Hikes: North Carolina Mountains, March, 2018, guidebook, paperback, $24.95, by Jim Parham, and published by Milestone Press, Inc., Almond, NC. Upcoming appearances include: City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, Friday, March 30, at 6:30 p.m.; and Diamond Brand in Asheville, Saturday, April 7, at 10 a.m.
