East Ridge Trail in Montreat

We went for a walk on the East Ridge trail in Montreat last week. One area on that trail is so peaceful and beautiful with this lovely fern covering the ground on both sides of the trail which runs along the ridge of mountains of the Blue Ridge range. This fern is Lady Fern and it is this lovely bright green and very soft looking. Also on this trail we saw these pretty red flowers called Fire Pink.

The third picture is Chinquapin. This shrub is in the same family as American Chestnut. The Chestnut was once the dominant hardwood of our eastern forests. It has been wiped out by a blight. We still see some small chestnut trees here in Montreat but they never get very large because they are killed by the blight. The Chinquapin was once believed to be immune to the Chestnut blight but that is not the case and Chinquapin will likely suffer the same fate as the Chestnut.