Bluebells along the Dothan Trail

One bright April day, God was walking in the woods by a southwest Michigan trout stream, enjoying the greens, whites, yellows, reds, and purples of the early spring. But one color was missing, and God, being God, couldn’t help but notice. Reaching up, he grabbed a big handful of sky and strewed it across the forest floor. And that is how we got Virginia bluebells.

At least, such is my theory.

Mid April to early May is the time when these flamboyant wildflowers cover large patches of open, riverine forest in  masses of glorious azure. The sight is not one you can easily overlook. Both in visual and olfactory appeal, not to mention sheer quantity, the Virginia bluebell clamors for attention, bedazzling the senses. It’s the belle of the forest ball. See it and you’ll instantly fall in love.

But first you’ve got to find where it grows—and that, my friend, is the trick. The bluebell dwells in only a handful of locations in five southern counties and one Upper Peninsula county. It is one of those strange contradictions in nature. A large and showy plant,  the Virginia bluebell tends to take over in extensive colonies. When you’re in the thick of a well-established location, with patches stretching through multiple acres of sandy, open floodplain forest, you wonder how this can possibly be a threatened wildflower. Keep walking, though, and you’ll find out. Once you’ve moved beyond the last patch, you can hike the rest of the river and never encounter the plant again. A number of our state’s threatened and endangered species are similar in this regard, being locally abundant but with their growing sites few and far between.

Monday I took a walk in one of Kent County’s premier locations for the bluebell. Where Baker Street crosses the Coldwater River in southeast Kent County, the Dothan Trail meanders through the heart of Trout Unlimited property. There, in cooperation with Trout Unlimited, the Michigan Nature Association maintains a plant preserve dedicated to the Virginia bluebell.

The trail is an easy, pleasant hike along the north bank of the Coldwater. Large, elegant sycamore trees line the river, which is a magnet for trout fishermen.

Keep your ears open and you’re likely to hear the whirring call of a pileated woodpecker. With a little luck, you’ll even see one of the birds. Normally retiring, deep-woods inhabitants, the pileateds seem to have grown accustomed to the presence of humans along the Dothan Trail.

As for locating the Virginia bluebells, no instructions are necessary. You’ll find them. They’re a sight to behold—and remember to smell the flowers. Their scent is as winsome as that of any rose.

In a different location west of Grand Rapids, where the bluebells grow thick along an Ottawa County trout stream, I had the good fortune to discover a white-flowered form of the plant. Sorry, I’m not telling where—there are only ten or twelve of these albinos at the site—but I’m happy to share a photo with you. It’s a closeup of the rarest of the rare, a springtime treasure of Michigan’s great outdoors.