A walk in the woods



I know she named this one, but in my concentration to get
 a picture and not fall off the rock at the same time, it
totally escaped me. I now know it is a Canadian Columbine.

 It's one thing to stroll through the woods by yourself. It is quite another to do it with Holly Scoggins, Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture, and Director of the Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech.  First she scouts a location for the walk a couple days ahead of time and remembers the location of assorted lovely flowers and plants.  Then she leads a group of early risers through the morning chill and damp and points out treasures like May apples (flashback to my childhood, carefree days in forests), Jack in the Pulpits (familiar, but rarely seen by me), walking ferns (obviously more gifted at walking in the forest) and horsetail reeds, a bundle of which I once had in my possession.  Of note is that she doesn't just say "horsetail reed," she says "Equisetaceae," or things like "Aristolochiaceae" and she somehow wraps her tongue around them before 9 a.m.

In addition to the many interesting flowers and plants Holly pointed us to, she also led us to the Falls Ridge Waterfall which squirmed its way over the rocks, left and right and left again for a total of 80 feet, delivering the always satisfying sound of water in motion and the vision of sunlight dancing on the ripples.  It was not a bad way to start the day.