OCONEE-BELLS 



Shortia galacifolia Torrey and Gray 



This evergreen, ground-covering plant was for many years one of 

 America's "lost species". It had been discovered byMichaux, the French 

 botanist, during his travels in the mountain wilderness of North Caro- 

 lina in 1788, but the exact spot where he found it long remained un- 

 known, and the dried specimen he had collected, preserved in Paris, 

 was the only proof that such a plant existed. In 1877 the plant was 

 rediscovered, and subsequently found to be fairly abundant in a few 

 restricted areas. I have not seen it in the wild, but Dr. Edgar T. Wherry 

 informs me that it thrives in acid soils on steep slopes along shaded 

 mountain brooks, and that the primroselike white flowers, starring the 

 mats of winter-bronzed foliage in March, produce a charmingly beauti- 

 ful effect. If transplanted into ordinary garden loam it soon dwindles 

 and dies, but if given acid humus soil it is not hard to grow in cultiva- 

 tion. Oconee-bells is known to the mountaineers as the one-flower 

 coltsfoot, but the common name has been given from its abundance 

 in the Oconee Valley. 



Oconee-bells is known to grow only in the Blue Ridge and adjoin- 

 ing parts of the Piedmont region in North and South Carolina. A close 

 relative occurs in Japan, however, indicating that before the glacial 

 period the genus must have spread over both northeastern Asia and 

 northern North America. The ice advances no doubt exterminated 

 some of the species, but the two that chanced to migrate far enough 

 to the southward of the line reached by the ice sheets were preserved. 



The specimen painted was grown by Dr. Frederick V. Coville, in 

 acid peat-sand soil, in a greenhouse of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture at Washington. 



PLATE 19 



