THE PLANT LIFE OF HARTSVILLE, S C. 



INTRODUCTION. 



South Carolina has been the home of several of the most promi- 

 nent botanists of America. Thomas Walter, an Englishman by 

 birth, who lived on the Santee River in the upper part of St. 

 John's Parish ; Stephen Elliott of Charleston, H. W. Ravenel of 

 Pinopolis and later of Aiken — the^e are honored names in the 

 history of our science; nor are they by any means all who have 

 made valuable contributions to the botany of the State. Dr. 

 Francis Peyre Porcher, Dr. James McBryde, Dr. J. H. Melli- 

 champ, and Prof. Lewis R. Gibbes were all native South Caro- 

 linians and careful students of its flora. All of these men lived 

 and worked in the lower half of the State, in fact, all but two 

 entirely below the Santee River. With the exceptions mentioned 

 below, the flora of the northern and northeastern parts of South 

 Carolina was left without any particular study, and knowledge 

 of its composition has been largely a deduction from what was 

 reported from similar or adjoining areas. There is much work 

 yet to be done before the composition and distribution of even 

 the higher plants of the State can be said to be at all well known. 

 Mr. Ravenel and Dr. M. A. Curtis did considerable work in the 

 fungi, but with these exceptions the lower plants have been 

 studied scarcely at all.* 



No catalog of the plants of South Carolina has ever been 

 compiled. Elliott's book was called "A Sketch of the Botany of 

 South Carolina and Georgia," but none realized more than the 

 author the necessary incompleteness of the work, especially for 

 the upper part of the State. The local lists that have been pub- 

 lished are those of Thomas Walter for the upper part of Berkeley 

 County, of Prof. Gibbes for Columbia and environs, of Mr. 

 Ravenel for the vicinity of the Santee Canal (being a part of 

 Walter's territory), and of Dr. John Bachman for the neighbor- 

 observations on the vegetation of South Carolina by the pioneering bota- 

 nists of the early days, — travellers like Catesby, Bartram and the two 

 Michauxs, — are of much interest and value, but they can be mentioned here 

 only in passing. See also my articles in The Journal of the Elisha 

 Mitchell Scientific Society, as follows : "A Visit to the Grave of Thomas 

 Walter," Vol. 26, April, 1910. "The Garden of Andre Michaux," Vol. 27, 

 July, 1911. "Dr. Joseph Hinson Mellichanip," Vol. 27, May, 1911. 



