Wood Betony

This is the wood betony, a parasitic plant that lives off tree roots. We found it along a creek a few miles from the Narrows of the Harpeth State Park. In the other photo my friend Mrs. Sharon Rose is pulling a branch away from an American Columbo, a plant some herbalists use as a tonic. This plant was growing in very dry soil on the bluff trail we climbed. The limestone cliffs at the park are a hanging garden of shooting stars, foam-flowers, wild columbines, phlox divartica, and firepinks. In summer cliff swallows nest in the holes in the bluff limestone. They were not at the park as yet, but we did hear parula warblers and yellow-throated warblers, which both nest in Tennessee.