276 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
earth with its charming flowers, and there any one 
so incHned will probably find it to-day, although it 
has been carried away by the wagon-load, not, how- 
ever, becoming thereby exterminated, as happens to 
so many of our wild flowers when the thoughtless 
visitor tears them rudely from the soil. For it was 
not the thoughtless visitor who removed Shortia, 
but skillful gardeners, who took it and cultivated it 
with the greatest care and sent it out to beautify the 
gardens of the people all over the world. 
