Rare Oconee Bells Devils Fork National Park Blue Ridge Park
by Kathy Barney
Title
Rare Oconee Bells Devils Fork National Park Blue Ridge Park
Artist
Kathy Barney
Medium
Photograph - Photography-digital Art
Description
Fromat Devil's Fork/ WIKI~ Rare flower that blooms only in the Mountains of southern North and northwestern South Carolina and in some places in Japan during the months of early March through April.Shortia galacifolia is a relict evergreen herb which long bewitched Asa Gray,the eminent American botanist, a saga detailed in the paper Asa Gray and his Quest for Shortia galacifolia. During his month in Paris from mid-March to mid-April 1839, Gray had seen a fragment of the plant in the Paris herbarium, Jardin des Plantes, and had long sought it in the wild in the mountains of North Carolina. Gray's diary entry for April 8, 1839 records him seeing the specimen and that he felt it was a new genus. The specimen seen by Asa Gray was discovered by Andr� Michaux, who listed the place he found the specimen as "High Mountains of Carolina."
There has been disagreement as to whether Michaux's original collection site was in Transylvania County, North Carolina at the confluence of the Horsepasture River and Toxaway River, or in Oconee County, South Carolina along the Keowee River at Jocassee. At the time it was thought to be one of the last living specimens of the plant with fruits but no flowers.Much of the area around Jocassee and the Keowee River was covered by up to 300 meters (980 ft) of water when the Jocassee Dam was completed in 1973.In Michaux's journal for December 8-11, 1788 he says he found the specimen near the headwaters of the Keowee, near where two rivers join together. Prior to its rediscovery, Gray made several unsuccessful trips to this region, the last one in 1876.
A specimen of S. galacifolia was not rediscovered until May 1877 on the banks of the Catawba River in McDowell County, North Carolina by George McQueen Hyams (1861�1932).
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March 16th, 2015
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