Hey Folks,

Here’s another flower, the Fire Pink, from the Chattahoochee National Forest, North Georgia Mountains, Georgia. I took this one spring hike up in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, near the North Carolina border. Spring in the Appalachians is an amazing time, the biomass that is generated in the hardwood forests there in a couple of weeks is simply awesome. The woods go from bare and barren to an incredibly rich, diverse glut of biota in what seems like a couple of days. Walking through the deep green forest and seeing a red glow like this little flower is way cool. The red is so bright, I had to dull it down a little on the computer to make it not look overdone – it’s really an intense vibrant flower.

I think there was a push to make the Fire Pink the State Flower of Indiana, but I’m unsure if it ever went ahead. Fire Pinks should be the State Flower of some state, I can tell you that – they’re just way to cool not to be!

I was going to wait until springtime to post flowers, but my friend Ron Niebrugge is having such a whale of a time down in California shooting the bloom of the century in the desert, I didn’t want to be left out. Check out his blog right now for some downright NASTY wildflower photos! 🙂

Cheers

Carl