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Brookville, PA is a small town about 15
miles south of Cook Forest in western Pennsylvania.
In the third week of June the town celebrates
the Western Pennsylvania Laurel Festival. This is the 68th
year of celebrating the annual event.
It is timed to coincide with the maximum bloom period of
the mountain laurel in the forests and fields in the area.
A few miles north and east of the town is a
“Laurel Display”
on property owned by the National Fuel Gas
Company consisting of a several acres of open ground with
scattered trees covered by laurel bushes.
These are naturally occurring bushes and
not a display planted for show.
The trees have been thinned or removed to open the area and some paths cut
in order maximize the laurel display.
A dirt road winds and wends its way through the laurel
area. Every year
thousands of people make the trek to this out-of-the-way spot to
view the laurel blooms. Today
I stopped by to see the laurel fields myself. The area is covered by hundreds, perhaps thousands of of
laurel bushes in bloom. The
laurel bushes are early in their bloom.
Many of the bushes are covered with deep pink blossoms
with only scattered flowers.
Others are in full bloom.
Only occasional bushes show a hint of brown among the
flowers indicating they are past their peak.
Laurel when it first comes out is pink in
color. The more
light they receive, the pinker the color.
Those growing in shady areas are almost pure white.
The bushes range in size from tiny sprouts with heads of
color, to multistemmed monsters 20+ feet across.
One bush I measured last fall was over 18 feet tall.
After leaving the Laurel Display area I
drove over to Beartown Rocks about ¼ mile away.
Here were more laurel growing among or atop the building
sized boulders. An
open area just below the rocks was a literally covered
by a mass of pink and white laurel blooms.
It was as impressive as the National Fuel Gas Laurel
Display itself. I
hope my photos show in small part some of the extraordinary
sight of these massive displays of
pink and white laurel blooms.
Edward Frank
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| photos by Edward Frank |
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| RE:
Mountain Laurel |
Barry
Caselli |
| Jun
15, 2006 19:25 PDT |
Mountain Laurel grows throughout most areas of the New
Jersey Pine
Barrens. There are some areas here and there where there
isn't any, but
that's the exception, not the rule.
Every
year, in late May and early June, I'm in amazement as I
drive
around because the Laurel is so beautiful. Of course it
does sometimes
have bad years, when it's not as pretty as usual.
I get to see a lot of it on my way to work every day.
It also grows up in the Highlands of North Jersey, along
with
Rhododendron.
By
the way, to my knowledge, if you remove trees from the
forests where
Laurels grow, and more sunlight reaches the forest
floor, the Laurels
will get stunted. They like growing in at least partial
shade. This is
what I've heard.
Barry
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| RE:
Mountain Laurel |
Edward
Frank |
| Jun
15, 2006 19:35 PDT |
Barry,
This area has been open for years and has the biggest
laurel I have seen
anywhere in the woods around here. The biggest
documented at Cook
Forest is only about 12 feet tall. There are dozens in
this more open
environment that are taller than that and likely have
bigger spreads
between their multiple stems. In the center are sections
with trees and
the laurel there is large, but still not as big as the
bushes in the
more open areas. The biggest are growing in the open
surrounded by
grass as if growing in a lawn. It might have something
to do with the
availability of water. If water were a problem, then
shade would reduce
water stress on the laurels, but here that does not seem
to be a
problem.
Ed
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| Re:
Mountain Laurel |
Michele
Wilson |
| Jun
18, 2006 11:22 PDT |
I decided years and years ago that God had the most fun
"painting" laurel
flowers. They are amazing in their detail. Tiny little
spots of pink and
fuschia, etc., the delicateness of it all always brings
a smile to my face
as I'm busy tripping over the damn stems all twisty and
turny, windy and
wendy... I figure that God had chosen to give us such a
wonderfully artful
display of his talents to help make up for the son-of-a-gunness
of the stem
growth habit he also gave us... to help house some of
his critters and... to
help keep us humbled, of course.
Michele
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