Mountain Lettuce - Tumblr Posts

Gandy Creek and the Seneca Creek Backcountry together serve as the western gateways to the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area in the Monongahela National Forest. This incredibly beautiful and wild area boasts one of the premier trail systems in the Mid-Atlantic region, with some 60 miles of trails winding through twenty-thousand acres of wilderness-quality red spruce and northern hardwood forests. Gandy and Seneca Creeks are also two of the most highly regarded brook trout streams in the eastern US.  On Saturday, in a cool, clinging mist, I took a hike on one of the less traveled trails, the Leading Ridge Trail.  The pulsating intensity of the new spring greens made them seem to glow in the dripping moisture.

From top: golden alexanders (Zizia aurea), the flagship spring wildflower of the mountains with its massed, golden flowerheads; Robin’s plantain (Erigeron pulchellus), a daisy-like spring aster with wide, lavender ray petals; brook lettuce (Micranthes micranthidifolia), whose edible leaves were once gathered in the spring by mountain folk for salads; and white baneberry (Actaea pachypoda), also known as doll’s eyes, because its white fruit in the fall resembles the china eyes once used in dolls.