Don Croner’s Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage Bike Trail | Flora | Phloxes

The genus Phlox includes about sixty-eight recognized species. Almost all are native to North America; the principal exception is one species, Phlox sibirica, found in Siberia, Mongolia, and the Russian Far East. The genus was named by Carl Linnaeus and appeared for the first time on page 151 of the first volume of his monumental Species Plantarum, dated May 1, 1753. Linnaeus chose Phlox from the ancient Greek word phlóx—“flame,” an allusion to the bright, flame-like flower masses of many Phloxes.

Four species of Phlox commonly occur along the GAP. Usually the first to flower is Moss Phlox (Phlox subulata), blooming in April and May. It thrives on dry, sunny, rocky banks and gravelly areas along the trail. Commonly only 3–6 inches high, it forms a dense moss-like carpet that can spread outward 2–3 feet or more. Forest Phlox, also known as Wild Blue Phlox (Phlox divaricata), blooms from Late April to early June in deciduous woods, shaded trail edges, and wooded stream margins. Meadow Phlox, or Wild Sweet-William (Phlox maculata), found in wet meadows, thickets, and along stream and river edges, usually flowers in June and can persist through the summer. From early July into September the tall, showy Fall Phlox, or Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata), can be found in flower along sunny or lightly shaded trail edges, and in thickets and disturbed openings along the GAP. This species is the ancestor of many cultivated Phloxes now found in gardens, so Fall Phlox along the GAP may be native, planted, escaped from gardens, or influenced by cultivated genetics.

All the Phloxes are decidedly ornamental, providing brilliant splashes of red, pink, pale blue, lavender, and lilac sure to excite the senses of attentive GAPers. But the Phloxes are not just a bunch of pretty faces. On a more utilitarian note, their tubular flowers provide abundant nectar to long-tongued insects, particularly butterflies, moths, skippers, and some bee flies. Woodland phlox in particular is a favorite of bumblebees, bee flies, butterflies, skippers, and moths. The Cherokee reportedly used a wash made from an infusion of Meadow Phlox root, said “to make children grow and fatten,” but beyond this the recorded medicinal use of the various Phlox species by Indigenous peoples is scant. Nor are the Phloxes considered edible, although they do provide a feast for the eyes.

Moss Phlox

Moss Phlox

Moss Phlox

Forest Phlox

Forest Phlox

Forest Phlox

Forest Phlox

Meadow Phlox

Meadow Phlox

Meadow Phlox

Fall Phlox

Fall Phlox

Fall Phlox

Don Croner’s Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage Bike Trail | Flora | Trout Lily

The Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) is a true Spring Ephemeral, living its entire above-ground life between snowmelt and the closing of the leaf canopy toward the end of May. It is one of the signature plants of Spring along the GAP and one of the most lovely. GAPers should not expect to find it along the verges of the GAP. It favors moist, rich, humus-heavy soils in part shade to full shade and is commonly found in mature forests of Sugar Maple, American Beech, Oaks, Hickories, and other hardwoods. The genus name Erythronium comes from Greek erythros (“red”). Old friend Carl Linnaeus coined it in 1753 based on the European species Erythronium dens-canis, which has pink-to-purple flowers, even though most American Erythronium species have yellow or white flowers. The species name americanum is simply Latin for “of America.”

Trout Lily has numerous other names, including Adder’s-tongue, Yellow Adder’s-tongue, Serpent’s Tongue, Rattlesnake Violet, Yellow Snakeleaf, and Snakeroot—not to be confused with White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima), another common plant along the GAP—and Dog-tooth Violet.The snake references come from the sharply pointed shoots that push up in early spring and the protruding reddish anthers, said to resemble a snake’s flicking tongue. The plant was known under these names until the late nineteenth century, when famous naturalist and writer John Burroughs (1837–1921), based in the Catskill Mountains of New York where the plant was plentiful, coined the name Trout Lily, a reference to the mottled purplish-brown leaf pattern resembling the coloring of a brook trout—though the name may equally reflect the plant’s bloom at the start of trout season. Burroughs, who disliked the older name Dog-tooth Violet, in fact preferred Fawn Lily, since leaves “stand up like fawn’s ears,” and the mottling of the leaves recalls a fawn’s spotted coat.

Trout Lily—sticking with the current name—caused quite a stir when reports reached Europe in the 17th century that it was an aphrodisiac. John Parkinson (1567–1650), the last of the great English herbalists and one of the first of the great English botanists, wrote in his mammoth 1629 book Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (Park-in-Sun’s Terrestrial Paradise): “Wee have had from Virginia a roote sent unto us, which the naturall people holde not onely to be singular to procure lust, but hold it as a secret, loth to reveale it.” In other words, Parkinson reported that the plant reached England via Virginia, and that Native people there regarded the root as a powerful aphrodisiac—one so effective that they were reluctant to share the knowledge of it. This report set off a craze among 17th-century European gardeners who were eager to get their hands on specimens of the plant. Apparently the craze did not last long.

Trout Lily also attracted the attention of the famous poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886). She regarded Trout Lily, which she called Adder’s-tongue, as one of the “beautiful children of spring.” It appears in both her youthful correspondence and her poetry, where it becomes a sign that March has arrived and that the sun is beginning to awaken the woods. Her most memorable poetic reference occurs in the poem usually titled by its first line, “We like March”:

We like March—his shoes are Purple.
He is new and high —
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler —
Makes he Forests Dry —
Knows the Adder’s Tongue his coming
And begets her spot —
Stands the Sun so close and mighty —
That our Minds are hot —

It is unclear if Dickinson’s interest in Trout Lily was motivated by its alleged aphrodisiac properties. In any case, a pressed Trout Lily was among the 424 specimens of the herbarium she assembled as a schoolgirl, now held in the Emily Dickinson Collection at Harvard’s Houghton Library.

Trout Lily has a long history of use among Indigenous peoples of eastern North America, particularly the Cherokee and Iroquois, and later in American folk herbalism. Its use as an aphrodisiac does not turn up in later reports, but, oddly enough, Iroquois women reportedly used the raw plant (excluding root) as a contraceptive (young girls in particular, according to the ethnobotanical record), while other groups, including the Cherokee, reportedly used it to induce abortions. The corms are edible—crisp, chewy, and pleasantly sweet in early spring—but the plant is strongly emetic in quantity, and digging a corm kills a plant that may have taken seven years to reach flowering size. Nowadays it is seldom foraged or used for medicinal purposes. Trout Lily is now best admired as the beautiful Spring Ephemeral that it is. GAPers seeking aphrodisiacs or contraceptives should look elsewhere.

Trout Lily

Trout Lily

Trout Lily. Note Red-necked False Blister Beetle on the right petal.

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Don Croner’s Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage Bike Trail | Flora | Hepatica

Round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica americana) is one of the first native plants of North America to flower along the GAP. It may appear before the Spring Equinox in March and sometimes while there is still snow on the ground. Unlike Coltsfoot, however, it is unlikely to be seen along the verges of the GAP itself. It occurs in shaded hardwood forests; its presence is a good indicator of a mature, undisturbed woodland environment. The genus name Hepatica derives from hepar, the Greek word for “liver” and later adopted into Latin—a reference to its three-lobed, leathery leaves, which were thought to resemble the lobes of a human liver. Although Hepatica appears at the same time as several Spring Ephemerals, it is not an ephemeral itself. Its leathery, three-lobed leaves do not disappear with the closing of the forest canopy in late May but persist through the summer and may even be visible throughout the winter.

Hepatica’s reputation as a medicinal herb is a classic case of the Doctrine of Signatures—the old belief that a plant’s form reveals what part of the body it can heal. Because the leaf has three lobes reminiscent of the liver’s lobes, European herbalists from at least the 17th century prescribed a European species of Hepatica—Hepatica nobilis—for various ailments of the liver. It appears as Noble Liverwort in the 1633 edition of Englishman John Gerard’s The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, revised and enlarged by the apothecary Thomas Johnson, where it is recommended as “good against weakness of the liver.”

The tradition was carried on in America, where the dried leaves of Hepatica became a staple ingredient in 19th-century liver and kidney tonics. In 1883 alone, more than 200 tons of wild hepatica leaves were harvested in eastern North America to supply a booming trade in patent “liver tonics.” The craze died down when it appeared that the remedy caused rather than cured cases of jaundice. The Doctrine of Signatures, which led to Hepatica’s use as a medicinal plant in the first place, has long since fallen out of favor. 

Native Americans, including the Chippewa and the Cherokee, also recognized Hepatica as a treatment for liver ailments, however, while the Iroquois and the Menominee turned to it for gynecological complaints. Iroquois women who had their sights set on a man chewed the plant to bewitch him and, as the ethnobotanical record puts it, to “make them [men] crazy by affecting their hearts”—a use explicitly catalogued as “witchcraft medicine.”

Hepatica is seldom used in contemporary herbal practice. Evidence of therapeutic benefit is inadequate, while fresh plant material contains protoanemonin, which may cause skin and mucosal irritation, and the plant is considered mildly toxic if ingested. Hepatica should be regarded chiefly as an attractive wildflower and a faithful harbinger of Spring along the GAP,  not a foraging or self-treatment herb.

Note that a very similar plant, Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba), also occurs along the GAP. Taxonomists have long argued over whether Sharp-lobed Hepatica and Round-lobed Hepatica are separate species or varieties of one species, and molecular work has led some authorities to place both in the genus Anemone (as Anemone acutiloba and Anemone americana). These distinctions are of interest to hard-core botanists but need not concern the average GAPer.

Hepatica

Hepatica

Hepatica

Don Croner’s Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage Bike Trail | Confluence | Witches

Pennsylvania “Legends & Lore” historical marker for Hexebarger, 1818 Humbert Road, Upper/Lower Turkeyfoot Township, dedicated October 2023 by the Meyersdale Public Library and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation.

The Allegheny Highlands carry a genuine, well-documented strand of witchcraft folklore — not imported ghost-story filler, but a local expression of the Pennsylvania Dutch Braucherei tradition that German-speaking settlers carried west from the Dutch Country into the Allegheny Front and the Allegheny Plateau. The clearest surviving example sits directly astride the GAP corridor: the “Hexebarger” or “Hexie” legend of Turkeyfoot Valley, a few miles from Confluence.

In a hollow between Kingwood and Ursina, in what is now Lower/Upper Turkeyfoot Township, a young couple named Sammy and Priscilla “Prissy” Rugg purchased a farm from Revolutionary War veteran Capt. Richard Rhodes around 1789. Prissy's father had given her a white horse as a wedding present, and by local account she would sometimes unhitch it from farm work, mount from a stump, and ride circles around the yard shouting, “I'll make the Welkin ring!” — “welkin” being an archaic word for the vault of the sky. Neighbors who heard this from a distance concluded she had supernatural power, and she acquired the name “Hex Berge,” witch of the hills.According to the Rockwood Area Historical and Genealogical Society's Down the Road of Our Past, Volume II, Rugg was said to cast hexes on people and livestock during her rides, and neighbors would “scurry off in fear” at the sight of her approaching on the white horse.

Prissy Rugg died in 1837, but the legend outlived her. An October 26, 1950 article in Meyersdale's The Republic, “Stories Reveal Hauntings Down in Turkeyfoot Region,” recorded that residents still reported hearing a ghostly rider on Humbert Road, described a second alleged witch from the same hollow said to be capable of flight, and recounted a headless-ghost story tied to an unmarked grave near the road. Long-time residents interviewed in 2024 — including Rebekah Clevenger and the family of descendant Sarah Wetzel — still warn newcomers away from the Williams-Firestone Cemetery and a supposedly abandoned house on Hexie Road, where visitors claim that cutting the engine and lowering the windows lets you hear the witches cackling after dark.

The Meyersdale Public Library (director Terri Foster, archivist Jennifer Hurl, and Pennsylvania Room volunteer Linda Marker) secured a folklore grant from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and dedicated a “Legends & Lore” historical marker at 1818 Humbert Road in October 2023, at the entrance to Pennsylvania State Game Lands No. 111. Nearly thirty people attended, including several of Rugg's own descendants — confirmation that, unlike most hex tales, Prissy Rugg was a real, documented settler rather than a fictional composite.

The vocabulary of the Hexebarger legend — hex, witch of the hills, the German-inflected place name itself — traces to Braucherei (also called Powwow or Pow-wow), the system of folk healing and protective charm-work brought to Pennsylvania by German-speaking (“Pennsylvania Dutch”) settlers beginning in the 1700s. Braucherei distinguishes the benevolent braucher or powwow doctor, who heals and lifts curses, from Hexerei — malicious witchcraft performed by a Hex. Scholars of the tradition note that it moved west with settlement, remaining influential “especially in Appalachia and the rural South,” which is precisely how a hollow in the Alleghenies came to carry a Pennsylvania Dutch name for witchcraft two counties west of the traditional “Dutch Country.”

No witch was ever formally tried in the Alleghenies themselves, but the colony's single witchcraft prosecution set the tone for how such accusations were handled statewide. In 1683/84, Governor William Penn personally presided over the trial of Margaret Mattson, a Swedish immigrant near Philadelphia accused of bewitching cattle. The jury delivered a carefully hedged verdict — guilty of “having the common fame of a witch,” but not guilty of the acts charged — and Mattson was fined rather than executed. Because Penn had already abolished capital punishment for all crimes except willful murder, Pennsylvania never experienced a Salem-style panic, and local hex beliefs like the Rugg legend were left to circulate as folklore rather than as courtroom accusations

Two much better-known Pennsylvania Dutch hex cases belong to the same folk-magic tradition, though both lie east of the Allegheny range proper and are worth noting for comparison rather than as Allegheny events: the 1928 “Hex Hollow” murder of powwow doctor Nelson Rehmeyer in York County, and the 1934 murder of Susan Mummey, the “Witch of Ringtown Valley,” in Schuylkill County. In both cases, a man who believed himself cursed killed the alleged witch in hopes of breaking the hex — evidence that Braucherei/Hexerei belief was taken seriously across rural Pennsylvania well into the twentieth century, not just in the 1700s hill country of Turkeyfoot.

• Access point: Confluence, PA, GAP mile marker ~72 (Confluence station); Hexie Road and Humbert Road lie a few miles north/inland of town, off the trail corridor.
• Marker location: 1818 Humbert Road, at the entrance to PA State Game Lands No. 111 — a short detour by bike or car from Confluence, feasible as a side trip during a Confluence–Meyersdale leg.
• Primary local source: Samuel Miller, A Place Called Hexie (available through the Meyersdale Public Library); Rockwood Area Historical and Genealogical Society, Down the Road of Our Past, Vol. II.
• Respectful visiting note: Hexie Road passes private residences and descendants of the Rugg family still live in the area—view the marker and roadside, but treat the “abandoned house” stories as folklore, not an invitation to trespass.

Don Croner’s Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage Bike Trail | Flora | Catnip

GAPers who are also Cat People will be thrilled to know that Catnip (Nepeta cataria L.) grows in abundance along the GAP. A native of southern and eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Inner Asia, Catnip was probably introduced to the New World by early European settlers and is now found in nearly all of temperate North America. It prefers human-disturbed niches like old rail-bed shoulders and trailside verges—making the GAP an ideal habitat. It does not grow in forests along the GAP, preferring areas without a leaf canopy.

Catnip belongs to the mint family, Lamiaceae, which includes other GAP plants like Bee Balm, Wild Basil, and Purple Deadnettle. It was one of the many species described by the ubiquitous Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1753 work Species Plantarum, as indicated by the L. in the scientific name. The genus name Nepeta probably derives from Nepete (modern Nepi), an ancient city north of Rome in Etruria, the region recognized as the heart of Etruscan civilization before Rome’s rise.

So what’s the deal with cats and Catnip? The main attraction is nepetalactone, a volatile chemical compound found in its leaves, stems, and seed pods. When a cat sniffs, licks, chews, or rubs against the plant, nepetalactone is released and binds to olfactory receptors in the cat’s nose, triggering a cascade of signals to the brain that raises beta-endorphin levels, the same effect activated by opioid drugs in mammals. The cats are literally getting high on this stuff. The typical high lasts 10–15 minutes, followed by a temporary recovery period of roughly thirty minutes to an hour before a cat can get high again. Roughly 70–80% of cats are affected by Catnip; the remaining 20–30% show no reaction at all. Kittens typically show no reaction until they reach sexual maturity, around 3–6 months of age.

The leaves and flowering tops of Catnip are edible for humans and have a long history as a beverage herb: Catnip tisane was a common daily drink in Britain before Chinese tea became widely available. Fresh or dried leaves lend a lemony-mint flavor to sauces, soups, and cooked dishes, though the plant is generally considered too pungent and bitter to eat raw in quantity. Catnip has one of the longer continuous medicinal records among GAP-corridor plants. Roman writers recorded its use as a infusion for headaches, colds, and digestive complaints, and legend holds that Roman soldiers chewed Catnip leaves before battle to steady their nerves and boost courage. Colonial settlers who brought Catnip to North America used it for coughs, fevers, infant colic, and sedation of frazzled nerves. Modern pharmacological research describes its antifungal, antioxidant, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties.

Nepetalactone, the active ingredient in Catnip, is also an effective insect repellent. Cats will roll on live Catnip to transfer the compound to their fur, where it functions as a self-applied mosquito repellent. Some authorities claim that the essential oil of Catnip is nearly as effective as the well-known repellent DEET on humans. For GAPers, this gives Catnip a practical field use: crushed fresh leaves rubbed on skin or clothing may offer a genuine, if short-lived, defense against trailside mosquitoes.

Few GAP corridor plants carry as old a magical history as Catnip. Its earliest documented mystical associations trace to ancient Egypt, where cats were sacred and Catnip became linked to Bast, goddess of pleasure, fertility, home, and protection. Egyptians reportedly burned Catnip leaves in rituals to draw closer to the gods and used it in embalming practices, cementing its connection to the afterlife. Greek and Roman writers carried the association forward, using Catnip to ward off danger and evil spirits, bring good fortune, and encourage fertility and affection. 

The richest chapter of magical use comes from the Middle Ages in Europe, when Catnip became deeply entangled with witchcraft folklore specifically because of its bond with cats, which were themselves widely believed to be witches’ familiars. Folklore held that witches used Catnip in potions and spells, that the herb could ward off evil spirits, and—more fancifully—that it could even help a witch fly (Witch’s Broom—Mullein—which grows along the GAP, is also associated with flying witches). Dried Catnip was also tucked under pillows to induce vivid dreams and sharpen psychic power, and it appeared in love potions meant to attract passion and affection.

At the very least GAPers who are also Cat People may want to take a few leaves home as gifts for their felines to get high on.

Young catnip

Young catnip

Catnip in flower

Catnip flowers

Catnip flowers 

Don Croner’s Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage Bike Trail | Flora | Indian Cucumber-Root

Indian Cucumber-Root (Medeola virginiana L.) is another plant GAPers will have to step off the bike path to find. A true native of the Alleghenies, it is found in mature undisturbed forests of beech-maple, oak-hickory, and mixed hemlock-hardwoods.  It prefers shade, or at least a dappled forest floor; direct sunlight kills it. The very presence of Indian Cucumber-Root is indicative of a healthy, mature forest. If the forest has been disturbed, say by logging or forest fires, it may take a decade or more for Indian Cucumber-Root to reappear, if it ever reappears at all. 

Indian Cucumber-Root is unusual in that it is the sole species in the genus Medeola. This means that it has no near relatives and is truly a one-of-a-kind plant. The genus and species were named by Carl Linnaeus (1707–1780), the Swedish botanist who formalized binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming biological specimens used down to the present day. The genus name Medeola is a Linnaean reference to Medea, the sorceress and herbalist of Greek myth—a reference to the plant's alleged medicinal use. The species name virginiana simply means "of Virginia," probably reflecting where the specimens obtained by Carl Linnaeus were found. The common name Indian Cucumber-Root refers to the rhizome, which both tastes and smells distinctly of cucumber and was historically gathered as food by Indigenous peoples of eastern North America.

GAPers are no doubt wondering how the Swede Carl Linnaeus, who never set foot in North America, came into the possession of the strictly North American plant he called Medeola virginiana L. (the L. indicates that Linnaeus himself named it). Every North American species he described in his landmark book Species Plantarum (1753), including Medeola virginiana, reached him through a network of botanists operating in the New World. First. there was John Clayton, a Virginia colonial official and self-taught botanist, who met the English naturalist Mark Catesby during one of his expeditions to New World and later shipping dried specimens and seeds back to him in London. Catesby in turn passed Clayton's material to the Dutch botanist Johan Frederik Gronovius in Leiden, Netherlands, who later corresponded with Clayton directly. Gronovius compiled Clayton's work into his book Flora Virginica (1739, 1743). Linnaeus spent the winter of 1737–1738 with Gronovius in Leiden, examining the Clayton specimens just before returning to Sweden. Those specimens became type material for many of the eastern North American species Linnaeus would later formally name. 

Then there was John Bartram, a Philadelphia Quaker farmer and gardener who ran the most important plant-collecting operation in the New World. From his garden on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia, he sent boxes of seeds and dried specimens to Peter Collinson, a London wool merchant and Quaker who served as the clearing-house for American plant material in Europe. Collinson sent Bartram's shipments onward to Gronovius and to Linnaeus himself. Linnaeus famously called Bartram "the greatest natural botanist in the world.” The garden where he propagated New World plants exists to this day and is now officially known as  Bartram's Garden. The 45-acre public garden, just outside of the City of Brotherly Love, has been designated a National Historic Landmark and continues to attract tourists and the botanically inclined. 

The voracious plant collector Linnaeus, who was not totally satisfied with the specimens provided by Clayton and Bartram and others based in the New World, eventually decided to send Pehr Kalm, a Finnish-Swedish naturalist, to America to fill in the gaps in his collections. Kalm was one of the so-called Apostles who had gathered at the feet of the famous Swedish botanist. He arrived in Philadelphia in September 1748 with a letter of introduction from Linnaeus to Benjamin Franklin, and then proceeded to collect plants in Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, New York, and Quebec. Along the way he met with Cadwallader Colden, a New York naturalist who had corresponded earlier with Linnaeus, and met Colden's daughter Jane Colden, often considered America's first woman botanist. Kalm returned to Sweden in 1751. His collections supplied roughly ninety of the species Linnaeus described in Species Plantarum (1753), including sixty that were new to science. Linnaeus named the mountain-laurel genus Kalmia, to which Mountain Laurel—the signature plant of the Alleghenies—belongs, in his honor. It is not known which collector in the New World provided Linnaeus with the plant he named (Medeola virginiana L.)—Indian Cucumber-Root—and included in his 1753 book Species Plantarum. 

Back when Pennsylvania was almost completely covered with mature hardwood forests Indian Cucumber-Root was probably quite plentiful and it crisp, white rhizomes may have been a viable food source for Native Americans. Its ideal habitat has been drastically reduced and nowadays it appears mainly as single, isolated specimens. Foragers no longer seek it out as a food source. Although the genus Medea is named for the Greek sorceress and herbalist Medea there is only scant evidence that it was ever considered a consequential medicinal plant. The Iroquois are reported to have used an infusion of the crushed, dried berries and leaves to treat convulsions in infants, and it is thought to be mildly diuretic, but that’s about it. Modern herbalists seem to ignore it completely. If GAPers do stumble upon Indian Cucumber-Root they should admire it for the unique plant that it is, but otherwise leave it alone.

Indian Cucumber-Root

Indian Cucumber-Root

Indian Cucumber-Root

Indian Cucumber-Root