Above are a few late season gems from my trip up the Highland Scenic Highway (top to bottom): (1) a marshy area along the Cowpasture Trail at Cranberry Glades; (2) the ever-gorgeous purplestem aster (Symphyotrichum puniceum), also known as swamp aster; (3 - 4) a lavender-phased variation of narrowleaf gentian (Gentiana linearis), perhaps the loveliest and most delicate of all the autumn wildflowers in these mountains; (5 - 6) the more broadly-leaved closed bottle gentian (Gentiana andrewsii), quite striking in its own right; (7) red-belted conk (Fomitopsis pinicola), a shelf fungus parasitic on conifers; the brilliant red “haws” (berries) of dotted hawthorn (Crataegus punctata), which are edible and have a tangy-sweet flavor; a grandly-beautiful field thistle (Cirsium discolor) gone to seed; and the ripe, tart berries of large cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon), the only healthy thing I snacked on all day (the wild berries are a hundred times more pucker-worthy than the commercially-grown ones).