Mountain Laurel Is a Local Forest Beauty

One of the happiest discoveries I made when I moved to the Jersey Shore was that around Memorial Day weekend and just after, our pine forests explode with flowering mountain laurel.

It's a plant that grew all over my native Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, and signified the changing of the season from spring to summer. But I didn't see much of it after moving to New Jersey, until I came to the Shore. It thrives here – and you don't have to work too hard to find it.

What it is: Kalmia latifolia is one of the East Coast’s prettiest native plants. A woody shrub that can grow 10 feet high, it thrives in a variety of forest habitats from Maine to Florida and west to Indiana.

Mountain laurel can be recognized at any time of year by its smooth, leathery evergreen leaves, which are oval and come to a point at the tip.

The slender, twisting trunks and branches of the shrub are beautiful, and are set off to great effect in the larger, multi-trunked specimens growing in shady forests.

But mountain laurel’s best season is late spring, when it bursts into magnificent bloom. The cascades of white or pale pink flowers – quarter-sized or smaller and dish-shaped – are spectacular, especially where large colonies of laurel are growing.

The plant’s other common names tell us more about it. Some call it spoonwood, referencing its use by Native Americans as material for utensils. It’s also been called lambkill and calf-kill, because all parts of the mountain laurel plant are poisonous, especially to grazing animals.

Where to find it: It’s hard to miss mountain laurel if you’re driving through New Jersey’s Pine Barrens this time of year. The plant grows well in the slightly acidic soils here. Even at highway speeds, you can get a good look at the flashes of brilliant white and seashell pink scattered throughout the forest understory. The southern stretches of the Garden State Parkway are flanked by lots of laurel.

For a better look, head to one of Ocean County’s pineland parks. Wells Mills County Park in Ocean Township has a trail that winds through several tall stands of mountain laurel on its way to a .

Why bother: The mountain laurels’ blooming period is one of those seasonal phenomena that’s worth seeking out. Getting up close and personal with the plant will also give you a chance to explore one of it’s most fascinating characteristics.

All mountain laurel flowers have ten tiny protrusions around their perimeters. These little bumps are most noticeable just before the flower opens – they look like a ring of small horns.

Each horn is actually a small pocket that holds the end of a stamen, the flower’s pollen-bearing structure. As the bloom opens, the pockets are pulled back away from the flower’s center, and the stamen heads are held taught, like tiny catapults waiting to be sprung.

As soon as pressure is applied to the center of the flower by a bee or other nectar-seeking insect – or a human finger – all 10 stamens spring from their holding spots to pelt the pollinator. It’s a fascinating evolutionary feature, and a fun one to watch in action.