Equinox, Stone Mountain

 It’s time to catch up with the woods.

• Low smartweed, Persicaria longiseta, is blooming. It’s everywhere in the Georgia Piedmont: deep woods, roadsides, vacant lots. It’s one of those inconspicuous plants that make up the weedy groundcover. They are overlooked — except for this time of year when the tiny flowers — I’d say magenta, but I’m not good with colors — are everywhere.

• Long leaf woodoats, in genus Chasmanthium, is common on the forest floor south of Stone Mountain. It’s a grass that tolerates shade. The distinctive seed heads mark the season with changes in color. They’re green in spring and khaki in summer. We’re getting the purple streaks now.

• On a trip to Panola Mountain, we saw purple and yellow blooms everywhere. Although this is Georgia Bulldogs country, black and red, I thought of my friend Pat Golden, an LSU grad who wore purple and gold in autumn. Bear’s foot, Smallanthus uvedalia, is in bloom — big yellow blossoms that look like sunflowers. It’s in Asteraceae, the daisy family. The leaves are shaped a bit like a bear’s track, I suppose. A lot of the purple flowers were coming from Georgia calamint, Clinopodium carolinianum, a shrub that’s usually no more than a foot tall. The blooms began in summer but they are plentiful now.

Out on the rock outcrops, Puck’s orpine, Sedum pusillum, was blooming. Its tiny white flowers look almost like a white moss.