Summer Secrets

Discover a rare flower, ancient cairn, wartime mystery, and remote passageway

Photo from the San Francisco Call courtesy of WikiMedia Commons

Backroad secrets lie within rare blooms, ancient stones, deep-sea mysteries, and less-traveled roads. Dive into these curiosities from our Summer 2025 issue.

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Also, our Pinehurst Barbecue Festival ticket giveway ends tonight, so be sure to enter before midnight. We’ll contact our five winners tomorrow.

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Photo of the rare three birds orchid by Dietrich Hoecht

FLOWER

Southeast

The three birds orchid (Triphora trianthophora) is a rare, ephemeral flower found in deciduous forests of the Southeast, Northeast, and Central United States. Named for its resemblance to birds in flight, the flower’s tiny pink and white blooms appear briefly from mid-August to mid-September for just a few days, making sightings exceptionally rare. Three birds orchids rarely grow over 2 centimeters on stems of varying lengths. They thrive in leaf-lined depressions of seemingly inhospitable habitats, such as American beech forests. The flower is listed as endangered or threatened in Florida and most northeastern states. Learn more at fs.usda.gov.

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Photo by Thomson200 courtesy of WikiMedia Commons

CAIRN

Lumpkin County, Georgia

Around 200 years ago, early explorers encountered mysterious stone piles between the mountain gaps of the Southern Appalachians. Most are gone, but one remains at a highway intersection in Lumpkin County, Georgia, marking the grave of Cherokee princess Trahlyta. According to legend, Trahlyta drank from a magical spring on