BULLETIN 



OF 



THE CHARLESTON MUSEUM 



Vol. 3 CHARLESTON, S. C, APRIL, 1907 No. 4 



A VISIT TO THE GRAVE OP THOMAS WALTER LIBRA* 



NEW YOl 



By Ezra Brainerd totanic 



While planning a recent journey through the coastal region iARDEr 

 of the Southern Atlantic States, I conceived a strong desire 

 to visit the home and burial-place of Thomas Walter, one of 

 the many distinguished men whose names adorn the early 

 history of South Carolina. My motive was twofold— first, a 

 sentimental respect for the memory of an enthusiastic student 

 of nature, who was the first to publish, in his Flora Caro- 

 liniana, a fairly complete account of the flowering plants of a 

 definite region in eastern North America; and secondly, a 

 desire to identify if possible, certain plants first named by 

 Walter, but suspected of being misunderstood by subsequent 

 students of botany. 



My desire to make this pilgrimage was stimulated by a brief 

 account in the Proceedings of the Elliott Society* of Charles- 

 ton, of a similar visit by Mr. H. W. Ravenel fifty years ago. 

 There was a tinge of romance in his description of Walter's 

 solitary grave in a grove of Chinese "tallow-trees" that the 

 botanist had himself planted, and in the statement on the 

 memorial tablet, that at his own request he was buried in the 

 garden, where once were cultivated most of the thousand 



^ plants described in his Flora. 



^ ♦Vol. I, pp. 53-54. 



7 "^ 



