Pennsylvania’s state flower, mountain laurel, is about to bloom across the region, ushering in the annual (almost) laurel festivals and offering some beautiful drives through the state’s mountains.
Back after a hiatus during the first year of the pandemic are the Pennsylvania State Laurel Festival in Wellsboro and the Brookville Laurel Festival in northwestern Pennsylvania. Both will run from June 12-20.
The Wellsboro event will feature a juried arts and crafts fair, pageant, pet parade, concerts and parade.
The Brookville festival will include concerts, sportsman’s night, races, quilt show, sidewalk sales, chicken barbecue, weightlifting competition, car and bike show, fireworks and parade.
The festivals may not be wall-to-wall mountain laurel, but they are in some of the best areas for viewing what has been described as an “impressionist painting of spectacular greens, soft pinks and hints of lavender.” The forest-lined roads around both Brookville and Wellsboro are rich in the state’s flower.
And what is likely the most dramatic spot in Pennsylvania to see mountain laurel in bloom – the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pine Creek Gorge – lies just a few miles west of Wellsboro.
Laurel Fields in Clear Creek State Forest in Jefferson County is another spectacular mountain laurel site, which became a popular attraction when a regional natural gas company bought it in 1929 and allowed the “Flower Power” fields to revert to a dense concentration of mountain laurel. The fields were acquired by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources 2006.
Some other top spots for taking in the forest bloom are:
- The trails and roads in and around Promised Land State Park in Pike County.
- Clarks Valley Road (Route 325), from Tower City to Dauphin, mostly in Dauphin County.
- Powells Valley Road from Halifax to Lykens in Dauphin County.
- The Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail, which runs from Ohiopyle State Park in Fayette County to Laurel Ridge State Park in Cambria, Fayette, Somerset and Westmoreland counties. Both of those state parks rate placement on our list.
- Quebec Run Wild Area, near Gibbon Glade, Fayette County, in Forbes State Forest.
- Skyline Drive, which runs along the spine of Chestnut Ridge east of Uniontown, Fayette County.
- Coudersport Pike (Route 664) in Clinton County.
- Route 120 from Lock Haven in Clinton County to Wyside in Cameron County.
- Lake Wallenpaupack in Pike and Wayne counties.
- H&BT Rail Trail in Bedford County.
- Trails and roads in and around Trough Creek State Park in Huntingdon County.
- Greenwood Furnace State Park in Huntingdon County.
- Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Berks and Schuylkill County.
- Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in Monroe, Northampton and Pike counties.
- Ricketts Glen State Park in Columbia, Luzerne and Sullivan counties.
- Poe Valley and Poe Paddy state parks in Centre County.
- Michaux State Park from Caledonia State Park to Pine Grove Furnace State Park, mostly along Ridge Road.
Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) has been Pennsylvania’s official state flower since 1933, when Gov. Gifford Pinchot signed into law one of two competing bills. The Pennsylvania General Assembly had passed two bills naming a state flower – one the mountain laurel and the other the pink azalea. Pinchot chose to sign the mountain laurel bill into law on May 5, 1933.
With a range stretching from southern Maine to northern Florida and west to Indiana and Louisiana, in addition to being the state flower of Pennsylvania, it’s the state flower of Connecticut and the namesake of the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania, Laurel County in Kentucky and the city of Laurel in Mississippi.
In most of Pennsylvania, mountain laurel typically blooms from late May through mid-June, just before summer arrives on June 21. Many areas of Pennsylvania appear to be experiencing a later than normal bloom this year, although some like the Laurel Highlands have reported full blooms have arrived.
Mountain laurel is a member of the heath family, Ericaceae, which also includes azaleas, blueberries, cranberries, huckleberries and rhododendron.
It averages 4 to 10 feet in height, although in the southeastern U.S. some specimens have been documented at 40 feet.
Mountain laurel is one of the few broad-leaved plants native to Pennsylvania that do not lose their leaves in the winter. Its leaves are lance-shaped, leathery, glossy and dark green, and measure 3 to 4 inches in length.
A pair of close relatives to mountain laurel also are native to Pennsylvania. Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) is found in limited spots of northeastern Pennsylvania, which is the southern extreme of its range. Bog laurel (Kalmia polifolia) occurs in sphagnum bogs of northeastern Pennsylvania, which is again the southern extreme of its range.
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You also can contact Schneck at mschneck@pennlive.com.
The Link LonkJune 08, 2021 at 04:05PM
https://www.pennlive.com/life/2021/06/peak-season-is-here-for-pennsylvanias-state-flower-where-to-see-it-at-its-best.html
Peak season is here for Pennsylvania’s state flower: Where to see it at its best - pennlive.com
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