Magnificent Mountain Laurel in Bloom

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Story and photos by Joseph Sapia
The other day, Monmouth County Park System workers at Huber Woods Park in Middletown took a telephone call from a woman, inquiring if mountain laurel was blooming.
“We get a lot of calls from people who want to be here when the blooms are at their peak,” said Sam Skinner, a Huber Woods Park naturalist for the Park System.
And, yes, the wild, tall evergreen shrub was blooming, flowering as May turns to June around Huber Woods and other areas of the hills along the Middletown-Highlands boundary. Mountain laurel in bloom – flowers generally white with a pink tinge, but they could be pink with a white tinge — was obvious along such roads in the hills as: Portland, McClees, Bowne and Browns Dock.
“We look for it every spring,” said hills resident Ron Gumbaz, who saw laurels in bloom as he walked recently in the Whippoorwill Valley Road area.

Mountain laurel
Mountain laurel

“I take note of it,” said Joan Schneider, 85, who lives on Portland Road. “It’s beautiful. I see a lot of it.”
Toni Rinella and her husband, Brian Compton, residents of the hills, drove slowly along Browns Dock Road through Huber Woods, taking in the blooms.
“It’s an event,” Compton said. “You get to mark time, I know what season it is.”
Compton said he looks for mountain laurel around Memorial Day, the traditional beginning of the Jersey Shore summer season. This year, though, it seemed to bloom early, Compton said.
Starting with a bud, the bloom evolves to a closed flower, before fully erupting – an evolution noted by Gumbaz.
“I think it’s just a beautiful dense bloom and, before they open, they’re like little Japanese lanterns,” Gumbaz said. “From afar, they look like (simple) white flowers.”

Mountain laurel
Mountain laurel

But a close-up inspection reveals an intricate pattern that includes pink markings.
“It’s the striation of the individual blossom,” Rinella said. “They’re not pure white. Up close, they’re very dainty.
Mountain Laurel is a native of the eastern United States. It is the state flower of Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
“I’m a Pennsylvania girl,” Rinella said. “They remind me so much of growing up, hiking in the woods.”
The plant’s scientific name, “Kalmia latifolia,” has a historic New Jersey connection. The genus name is derived from Pehr Kalm, a Swedish botanist who did field work in New Jersey in the mid-1700s.
The species name, “latifolia,” is Latin for broad-leaved.
Some thought this year’s bloom was a spectacular one.
“It’s a beautiful bloom this year,” Gumbaz said.
“This year just seem beautiful,” Compton said.
But was it better than other years?
“It’s always pretty good,” Skinner said. “I don’t think I remember a year it wasn’t good.”