Flower notes by Leonard M. Adkins Photos by Joe Cook & Monica Sheppard How lucky are we to get to share a selection of favorite Appalachian Trail wildflower photos as selected by "Mr. A.T.," Leonard Adkins? (Pretty lucky.) Leonard M. Adkins has spent much of his adult life dedicated to two things: hiking and creating books about those hikes and all their glorious aspects. (Not to mention, of course, that third thing: wife and hiking companion Laurie.) Not the least of those apsects of the trail are the wildflowers that decorate the mountains each year. The third edition of Leonard's "Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail" (one of his 20 books on trails and hiking) is just out from Menasha Ridge Press and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy ($16.95 paperback). In the book's 222 pages it contains about 100 full-page wildflower color photos, as found along the 2,190 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. We asked Leonard, a regular contributor to this magazine for 20 years (his "The Hike" column has in recent years come to be called "The Good Walk"), to pick 10 favorite wildflowers from the Southern Mountains' region of the trail. His comments appear with the wonderful photography from Joe Cook and Monica Sheppard. Left: What a joy it is to see bloodroot's tightly-wound green leaves punching through late winter's brown forest floor. Like the appearance of the spring beauty, this is a harbinger of milder days to come. Right: How can the nearly ubiquitous mountain laurel not be a favorite southern Appalachian Trail wildflower? The trail often goes through half-mile-long laurel tunnels, and the experience becomes even more exhilarating when the white flower clusters appear by the thousands. March/April 2018 35