Asa Gray and His Quest for Shortia Galacifolia

Asa Gray and His Quest for Shortia galacifolia Charles F Jenkins C. E Jenkins of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was both an excellent writer and an active horticulturist. He served as editor of The Farm journal for many years, and wrote several books on American history. In 1931, he founded the "Hemlock Arboretum" and published the well-known Hemlock Arboretum Bulletin until his death in 1951. In the Arnoldia article reprinted here, Jenkins, who was an important supporter of the Arnold Arboretum, tells the intriguing story of Asa Gray and C. S. Sargent searching for the botanical equivalent of the Holy Grail. The word bewitched has antipodal meanings. Arbor. As the buildings were not ready, he was The first, sinister, fearsome, savoring of Salem granted a year’s leave of absence, a salary of trials and clouded minds; the second, $1500, and $5000 was placed at his disposal charmed, enchanted, captivated. In this to purchase books for the new University second sense Asa Gray was bewitched. For library. The main object of his trip, however, forty years, the greater part of his productive was to examine the original sources of Ameri- life, the memory of a fragmentary, dried, can flora as they existed in the principal her- incomplete specimen in a neglected herbar- baria of Europe. After a twenty-one-day voyage ium cabinet in France haunted him. The he landed in Liverpool and then began a year assurance of its existence as a living plant and crowded with rich cultural and educational the hope of its rediscovery were with him experiences. Everywhere he made friends constantly. A shy, evergreen groundcover with among the botanists and scientists and every- dainty, creamy-white flowers in early spring; where he found in the old established herbaria cheerful, shiny, bright green leaves in sum- specimens of American plants collected mer ; a winter coloring rich and rare-it well through the past century by a long list of deserved his lifelong devotion. When the botanists and travellers. search was ended and the visible assurance of the Herbarium in France its existence was placed in Gray’s hands, he Finding Specimen could well exclaim, as he did: "Now let me By the middle of March, Gray had reached sing my nunc dimittis." Paris where he remained nearly a month. Here On November 9, 1838, Gray sailed in the he worked over the collections of Andre packet ship Philadelphia for Europe. He had Michaux (1746-1802), that indefatigable col- received appointment to a professorship in the lector and botanist, who fifty years before had newly planned University of Michigan at Ann spent eleven years in the United States, send- ing home to France great quantities of botanical treasures. Among these in a cabinet of Volume 2(3, 4): 18-28, 1946. unidentified plants was a faded, incomplete specimen with the label: "Hautes montagnes On December 11 it froze hard and the air was clear and keen. I noted a chain of high mountains which de Carolinie An An genus ~~~~~ pyrnla spec extended trom west to east and where the frost was novuml" In his Andre carefully kept journal, little felt m places exposed to the sun. I gathered a Michaux not only tells of the finding of the Jumperus [repens] which I had not yet seen in the plant, but gives careful directions so that southern part of the United States but it must be future botanists might also locate it in the noted that I saw on these mountains several trees of the northern such as Betula Cornus Mountains of Carolina." regions mgra, "High altemifoha, Pmus strobus, Abies, Spruce, etc. We in as is Michaux’s Journal French, written, crossed a space of about three miles in the midst of not readily available, nor is there a translation Rhododendron maximum. I came back to camp of the whole Journal for English readers. with my guide at the head of the Keowee and the of Professor Edith gathered a large quantity of the low woody plants Through courtesy I found the I of the French of Swarth- with the saw-toothed leaves that day Philips, Department arrived. I did not see it on other mountain. The of that any more College, the following translation Indians of the place told me that the leaves had a small portion relating to the finding of Shortia good taste when chewed and the odor was agreeable is here presented. It will give some idea of the when they were crushed, which I found to be the hardships borne by the botanist in his travels case. covers on four and his experiences disagree- [Michaux’s directions for finding Shortia] able winter days when he came upon the lit- The head of the Keowee is the junction of two tle which has botanists for one plant intrigued torrents of considerable size which flow m cascades hundred and fifty-four years. from the high mountains. This junction takes place in a small plam where there was once a Cherokee The roads became more difficult as we approached village. On descending from the junction of these the headwaters of the Keowee Kiwi [spelled by two torrents with the river to one’s left and the on the 8th of December, 1788.... Two Michaux] mountains which face north on the right, one finds miles before there I the arriving recognized Magno- at about 200-300 feet from the junction, a path lia montana which has been named M cordata or formed by the Indian hunters It leads to a brook aunculata Bartram. There was m this a lit- by place where one recognizes the site of an Indian village tle cabm inhabited a of Cherokee Indians. by family by the peach trees which still exist in the midst of We there to and I ran off to make some stopped camp the underbrush. Continuing on this path one soon I a new low investigations. gathered woody plant reaches the mountains and one finds this plant with saw-toothed leaves on the mountain creeping which covers the ground along with the Epigaea at a short distance from the river. [Michaux here repens. refers to Shortia.] The weather changed and it ramed all we were m the shelter of a night Although great In his for 8, 1839, Gray records Strobus pine our clothing and our covers were journal April the soaked About the middle of the night I went to the the find in the herbarium of Paris cabin of the Indians, which could scarcely hold the Museum which immediately aroused his family composed of eight persons, men and women. interest: There were besides six big dogs who added to the "But I have something better than all this filth of this apartment and to its inconveniences. The to tell I have discovered a new in fire was placed m the middle without any opening you. genus in the top of the cabin to let the smoke out; there Michaux’s herbarium-at the end, among were plenty of holes, however, to let the rain through plantae ignotae. It is from that great unknown the roof of this house. An Indian came to take my region, the high mountains of North Carolina. place by the fire and offered me his bed which was We have the fruit, with the persistent calyx a bear’s skm. But finally the ram having stopped and no a that I annoyed by the dogs which kept biting each other and style, but flowers, and guess continually to keep their place by the fire, I returned made about its affinities has been amply to the camp. borne out on examination by Decaisne and This place which is called the source of the myself. It is allied to Galax, but is ’un tres dis- is so It the Keowee incorrectly indicated. is junction tinct genus/ having axillary one-flowered of two other rivers or large torrents which unite at flower and a that of a this place and which is known only as the forks of scapes (the large style the Keowee. Pyrola, long and declined). Indeed I hope it 7 of it until fourteen years after Dr. Short’s death. Apparently the latter never made the penalty pilgrimage to the mountains of Caro- lina in search of his namesake. His own large collection of dried plants passed to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, but his name is still to be found on the twenty-five thousand herbarium specimens he is said to have generously distributed to like-minded enthusiasts throughout the world. The Search of the Carolina Mountains Returning from his trip abroad, Gray reached home early in November, 1839, and immediately plunged into the task of completing the Flora of North America. Shortia, however, was always in his mind. It was Michaux’s incomplete and misleading label "Hautes montagnes C. E. Faxon’s drawing of Shortia galacifolia, first pub- de Carolinie" on the herbarium specimen in hshed in Garden and Forest m 1888. From the Paris that delayed for nearly forty years the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum. satisfaction he was to have in holding in his hand a living plant. In anticipation of a will settle the riddle about the family of botanizing trip Dr. Gray now consulted Galax, and prove Richard to be right when he Michaux’s journal. But one must read care- says Ordo Ericarum. I claim the right of a dis- fully to find the reference, although in all the coverer to affix the name. So I say, as this is journal no species location is so faithfully a good North American genus and comes described as that of Shortia, but Gray unfor- from near Kentucky, it shall be christened tunately missed the significance of Michaux’s Shortia, to which we will stand as godfathers.

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