Three official State Flowers bring beauty to the state and to the Upper Cumberland, according to a Cumberland County naturalist.
David Clark relocated to the state from Oregon four years ago and completed a specialized state program to better understand his new environment. Clark spends the majority of his time exploring the UC to locate native plant species in their natural habitats.
“I mean they all have their little unique habitats and growth patterns, but you just need to get out and explore and look around,” Clark said. “One of the books that identify native plants can be really helpful when you’re out and about.”
Clark said Tennessee features three official state flowers, which include the iris, the passion flower and the Tennessee cone flower.
“You’ll be walking by the same place that had an abundant patch of say bloodroot, one of my favorite flowers in the spring is bloodroot,” Clark said. “You can walk by there a few days ahead of time and see nothing, come back a few days later and there’ll be a patch of really pretty bloodroot blooming and come back a couple weeks later and if you’re looking you might find the seed pods, but the flowers have disappeared until next spring.”
Clark said the Tennessee Naturalist Program requires forty hours of class time covering flora, fauna and karst landscapes. Participants must also complete forty hours of volunteer work, such as building and maintaining trails, to earn their official certification card.
“Just a pretty pretty good selection of things that you can volunteer for to get your 40 hours in,” Clark said. “And then you can continue to get credits after that too.”
Clark said many state parks currently offer opportunities to view spring beauty, phlox, trilliums and May apple flowers.
