Flowers of spring in the Great Smokies, white-fringed phacelia (above) and bluets (below) fill the little cove of McGee Springs. Since McGee Springs is located at an elevation of close to 5,000 feet, and the trailhead down at Round Bottom is only 3,000 feet, flower season can be enjoyed for several weeks, with the phacelia bloom at the Springs reaching their peak nearly two weeks after the flowers fade away down along Straight Fork at the bottom of Hyatt Ridge. Another favorite plant of spring (to some people) is the ramp, a wild garlic that grows in abundance in many areas of Hyatt Ridge and Raven Fork.

Something to bear in mind is that despite the beauty of the white-fringed phacelia, it afflicts some people that have a sensitivity to it with a reaction similar to that of poison oak or poison ivy. P. fimbriata, or the fringed phacelia, is also known as scorpion-weed, a name it gets because of its odor, which supposedly smells something like the scent of a scorpion.

If the bluets, below, didn't grow in clumps, most people probably wouldn't ever notice it. It's a tiny blossom, less than a half inch in width. It grows in acid soils, which is in most of the deciduous woodlands of the Smoky Mountains.