Rachel Stepek · Forest Rainbow

The Appalachian spectrum

Yellow & Gold

ochre · old gold · butter · clear yellow · lemon · yellow-green

Gold and ochre come first. Butter, clear yellow, and lemon follow before the last small flowers lean toward green.

Ochre to old gold

Shaggy-Stalked Bolete

Aureoboletus betula

Old-gold caps shade toward ochre-orange, their rims lit from below by a dense lemon-yellow pore surface. The thick, curving stalks are wrapped in a deeply raised yellow network streaked with rust and red, almost like open latticework. Moss, silver-green lichen, oak leaves, and twigs crowd the low shelter around them.

August · Research Grade

Field fact and source

The shaggy effect comes from exaggerated reticulation—a deeply raised network along the stalk. DNA-based work published in 2020 moved this species from Heimioporus into Aureoboletus. Alabama Mushroom Society → USDA Forest Service research record →

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Honey gold · cream

Honey Mushroom

Armillaria mellea

Three golden caps rise together from the shaded bank, their darker centers surrounded by warm yellow. Cream gills and a small ring around the stalk bring the color back toward white. Green leaves and dark soil make the gold stand out.

September · Appalachian woods

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Rich golden yellow

Ornate-Stalked Bolete

Retiboletus ornatipes

The late-August mushroom stands whole above dry leaves: a smooth sunflower-yellow cap balanced on an even brighter stalk wrapped in a deeply raised gold network. The earlier hand-held view turns the cap over to show a fine, evenly yellow pore surface.

July & August · Forest Floor · Research Grade

Field fact and source

The golden net is raised tissue. Mycologists call that three-dimensional pattern reticulation; in this species, its depth and yellow-to-olive color are central field characters. USDA Forest Service research →

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Cream gold

Golden-Gilled Gerronema

Gerronema strombodes

Creamy golden gills radiate from a tiny center and run down a threadlike amber stalk. The mushrooms spring from blackened, water-dark wood, where a hand, patches of moss, and the charred grain make their cream undersides look almost luminous.

August · Research Grade

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Golden yellow

Small Yellow Mushrooms

Hydnaceae

One egg-yolk-yellow mushroom rises cleanly through crossed pine needles, its wavy cap opening above a narrow golden stem. Blunt ridges run beneath the cap while wet brown leaves, black soil, and scattered orange fragments repeat the color across the forest floor.

August

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Honey ochre

Fibroporia

Fibroporia radiculosa

A honey-ochre crust spreads beneath decaying wood in thick shelves and dense fields of downward-pointing teeth. Creamy tips catch the light along each ragged fold, framed by black cavities, splintered bark, and saturated green moss.

August · Research Grade

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Butter yellow

Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail

Papilio appalachiensis

Lemon-yellow wings repeat across the damp floor of a rock shelter, every butterfly crossed by bold black tiger stripes. Open triangles, folded profiles, and flashes of powder blue gather among wet stone, fallen leaves, and the dark sandstone ledge below the waterfall.

April

Field fact and source

Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail was formally described only in 2002. It resembles Eastern Tiger Swallowtail but tends to be larger, with more yellow between narrower dark stripes, more angular wings, and rectangular rather than crescent-shaped underside hindwing marks. Original species description → · Identification summary →

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Butter yellow

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Papilio glaucus

Lemon-yellow wings open into a broad, angular silhouette crossed by four velvety black stripes. Powder-blue crescents and two burnt-orange eyespots brighten the tailed hindwings, while sandy gray ground and a few grass blades keep the butterfly’s full span visible.

July · Research Grade

Field fact and source

Butterfly color sits on overlapping wing scales. In this species, those scales form four black tiger stripes across yellow wings; some females instead develop an almost-black form resembling the distasteful Pipevine Swallowtail, a color pattern that may discourage predators. University of Kentucky Entomology → University of Florida IFAS Extension →

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Clear yellow

Southern Sneezeweed

Helenium flexuosum

A rounded wine-brown disk rises above a skirt of clear yellow rays, each petal ending in three neat notches. The flower faces the lens on a slim green stem, with smaller blooms, wet-bank foliage, and softly blurred pink-purple plants behind it.

June

Field fact and source

What looks like one purple-brown center is actually a rounded disk of many tiny flowers, surrounded by the notched yellow ray flowers. That raised center also helps distinguish Southern Sneezeweed from related species along wet banks. NC State Extension →

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Lemon, cream and black

Yellow-Striped Oakworm Caterpillar

Anisota peigleri

Lemon-yellow stripes run the length of the caterpillar’s black body between rows of dark branching spines. Cream markings, tiny orange-brown feet, a narrow twig, and springy olive moss make the close views a layered study in line and texture.

August

Field fact and source

Yellow-Striped Oakworm caterpillars change palettes as they grow: early stages are yellow to yellow-green, while later stages become black with yellow stripes. Mature caterpillars eventually leave the oak canopy and pupate two to three inches underground, remaining there until moths emerge the following year. University of Florida IFAS Extension →

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Vivid lemon yellow

Fragile Dapperling

Leucocoprinus fragilissimus

A pointed lemon-yellow cap balances on a stem nearly as thin as grass. The upright views emphasize its clean, high-key color among russet leaves; turned on its side, the mushroom reveals delicate ivory gills and a papery cap margin.

August · Research Grade

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Lemon yellow

Club-Like Tuning Fork

Calocera cornea

Hundreds of egg-yolk-yellow clubs branch into tiny forks across a slick, almost black log. The upright tips resemble miniature antlers or flames, spreading in loose colonies through beads of moisture, bare wood grain, and shadow.

June

Field fact and source

These yellow-orange fruiting bodies are typically only about two centimeters tall. They grow from dead hardwood and have no separate cap, gills, or stem—the smooth club is one continuous structure. Binghamton University mycological herbarium →

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Lemon yellow

Dwarf St. John's Wort

Hypericum mutilum

Minute butter-yellow flowers open into five-pointed stars above wiry green stems and paired narrow leaves. Resting across a hand, the plant’s true scale becomes clear against bright shoreline growth, scattered stone, and a damp woodland bank.

June

Field fact and source

The tiny plant carries the same five-petaled golden form seen in much larger St. John's-worts, compressed into a wet-ground plant small enough to need a hand for scale. Its rounded leaves clasp the stem directly. NC Wetland Plants Guide →

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Yellow-green

Downy Yellow False Foxglove

Aureolaria virginica

A single yellow bell hangs beneath a vertical run of round chartreuse buds on a tall green stem. Against gray bark and a leaf-strewn slope, the small bloom is easy to miss until its clear yellow catches the eye.

June

Field fact and source

This green plant makes its own food by photosynthesis, but it also attaches to white-oak roots for part of its water and nutrients—a strategy called hemiparasitism. NC State Extension →

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Photographs and field notes by Rachel Stepek · Field exploration with Nathan Stepek