Notes from a Naturalist: It's mountain laurel season, appreciate them in full bloom

It’s a good year for the mountain laurel blossoms at Tin Mountain and it’s not too late to see the blooms. This past Wednesday, Tin Mountain led its annual mountain laurel walk program. Every year around the last week of June there is anticipation for how abundantly this shrub at the northern limit of its range will bloom. There are few flowering events in our area like the sight of thousands of mountain laurel blossom clusters in full bloom. From a distance the sight of all the mountain laurels in bloom looks like a snowfall of blossoms from the sky, coating the forest with their showy white clusters and a blush of pink.

The mountain laurel blossoms started blooming the week of June 22 and there is still time to catch them in bloom for another week or so, but the peak is now! The mountain laurel plant is a woody shrub that is common further south, particularly from southern New England to Georgia. A hike along the rocky ridge tops of the Appalachian Trail between Virginia and New York between mid-May and mid-June can turn up massive tunnels of blossoms that add cheer to a hike for miles and miles. At lower elevations the mountain laurel can be found as far south as the Florida panhandle. I have fond memories of massive blooms of it in early June along the ridge line of the Shawangunk mountains in the Hudson Valley region, known by climbers as the Gunks.