A delightfully rugged hike through the Apalachicola valley’s rare flora, in honor of Chattahoochee’s own world-renowned botanist.

I had the pleasure this spring of exploring a park and trail system that’s new to me but certainly not to the people who live in the small riverside community of Chattahoochee, right on the Georgia border. Even better, I took a hike with the park’s namesake and native son, Angus Gholson, who has spent his life exploring the rugged ravines of the Apalachicola River in search of unusual plants. Long retired, he’s a classical botanist with an extensive herbarium and deep appreciation for the rarity of the flora that grows in this most unusual part of Florida, where ravines drop steeply as tributaries cut their way down to the river’s level. Leigh Brooks, who worked at neighboring Torreya and Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines, facilitated the hike. My focus was getting to know Angus and the flora that makes this area so special, so I didn’t take notes or a GPS track on the length of the network of trails we walked, and we didn’t get to them all. But this hike isn’t well-known, so I’m taking the opportunity to share it with you before I gather all the statistical details. You’ll find sometime to see here all times of the year, but the grand parade of wildflowers starts each February with trout-lily and trillium, and progresses to Indian-paint and fringed campion, an unusual flower seen frequently along these trails.