“In May last, I set on a botanic tour to Augusta and to Savannah town and continuing southwest to the river Altamaha in Georgia,” writes Moses Marshall in his account of his southeast Georgia expedition in 1790. “ I here found the Franklinana.” Searching for Franklinia The Lost Flower of the Altamaha R OBERT L ATIMER H URST the “Lost Gordonia,” has been classified two botanists who initiated this plant’s as “America’s first rare plant,” and it has puzzling story nearly 250 years ago. arshall’s sighting was the last become legendary in the way of the John Bartram and his son, William, recorded observation of the demise or near demise of the passenger first discovered “a modest grove of this MFranklinia plant in its native pigeon, ivory-billed woodpecker and unusually beautiful small tree in Georgia habitat; henceforth, to the present day, American chestnut. in 1765.” The small tree was growing the only viewing of the Franklinia, In America’s “First” Rare Plant—The wild and in profusion in the immense named in honor of Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Tree, Lucy Rowland referred to bottomlands along the Altamaha River in has been at arboretums and botanical the disappearing act by this member of southeast Georgia. John Bartram, a char- ter member of the American Philosophical Society, was a self-edu- cated man. A liberal Quaker and an active farmer, he had an “impelling scientific curiosity” to explore America’s virgin forests, almost at odds some- times with his strict reli- gious background. Bartram began gath- ering seeds and plants and found a lucrative market selling them to wealthy collectors in Europe. By sending these discoveries over- seas, the botanist spread his name among European scientists, The mysterious flower that first attracted including the noted and then eluded the Bartrams and other naturalists carries a mystique that hovers botanists Peter Kalm between history and legend. and Carl Linnaeus. Kalm had traveled colo- nial North America CLIFFORD JOHNSON gardens throughout the world. the camellia family as a “romantic, mys- from 1748 to 1751, collecting plants that The Franklinia’s mysterious disap- terious past” exceeding that of any other he preserved for future study; his work pearance from its original range is little- American plant. Rowland, a University provided firsthand information to other known outside the relatively small com- of Georgia library administrator and a botanists, especially Bartram, who also munity of botanists and naturalists Clarke County planning commissioner credited Swedish botanist Linnaeus, the intrigued by the story. The Franklin Tree, for more than 20 years, set the scene for “father of modern taxonomy and ecolo- also known as the “Lost Camellia” and this mystery by introducing readers to gy,” in beginning his studies. 28 GEORGIA BACKROADS / AUTUMN 2014 With a surge of interest in American Lumber City, where the Ocmulgee and colonial native flora and fauna by 1765, Oconee rivers unite. The Altamaha River John Bartram received a commission watershed is the largest river system east from the British crown to visit the Indian of the Mississippi River, offering priceless tribes of the League of Six Nations and to habitat along its winding course of explore the Canadian wilderness. Later, approximately 140 miles. More than 100 under King George III, Bartram held the species of rare or endangered plants and position of Royal Botanist for North animals find shelter in this basin, includ- America. This appointment allowed him ing Georgia’s spiny mussel, Atlantic stur- to travel throughout the colonies, collect- geon, swallow-tailed kite, American oys- ing and preserving floral “treasures,” just tercatcher and piping plover. Further as his mentors had done. These collec- inland, the watershed includes old stands tions were transplanted both in America of longleaf pine, colonies of red-cockad- and in Europe. ed woodpeckers, gopher tortoises and a Exploring Georgia and Florida in the variety of rare plants. company of his son, William, during Close to the time when Goldsmith 1765 and 1766, Bartram discovered the was writing his verse, John and William shrub that later would be classified as Bartram were following the Altamaha Franklinia alatamaha. He had traveled River trails searching out new species of from Philadelphia to Georgia in search of native flora. They camped near Fort new species of native flora. During this Barrington, which was located between trip—the only one the elder Bartram present-day Jesup and coastal Darien. made to Georgia—he first observed the This section of the Altamaha watershed WAYNE MORGAN WAYNE mystery plant. No name was given the is pinpointed as the location where they The lovely and mysterious Altamaha River shrub at this time, but Bartram and his discovered the overcup oak, Ogeechee near the historic site of Fort Barrington. son never forgot the gorgeous bloom lime, and the most famous of all their Botanists periodically search for the Franklin found near the Altamaha River. discoveries—the Franklinia. Tree, but it was last seen here in the wild Seven years later, William Bartram Describing his second odyssey into more than two centuries ago. returned to Georgia in search of the this wilderness territory, William wrote: beautiful flower that he remembered so “I got up early in the morning and took It was William Bartram’s works, vividly. In those days, the Altamaha was the road from the northeast side of the including his magnificent and detailed remote, dangerous and full of secrets. In Altamaha River to Fort Barrington. On descriptions of nature in Travels through 1770, poet Oliver Goldsmith described drawing near the fort, I was greatly North and South Carolina, published in the “Altama as a place filled with blazing delighted at the appearance of two new 1791, that influenced William sun, savage Indians, unsinging birds, beautiful shrubs in all their blooming Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor silent bats, tornadoes, poisonous plants, graces. One of them appeared to be a Coleridge, two poets who initiated the scorpions, rattlesnakes and ‘Where species of the Franklinia, but the flowers Romantic Age in English literature. Not crouching tigers wait their hapless prey.’” were larger and more fragrant than those suddenly, but over time, Europe and According to Altamaha River author- of the Gordonia Lashianthus, and are ses- North America stepped gingerly into ity Bob Hanies, the Altamaha means dif- sile; the seed vessel is also very different. nature instead of struggling against it. ferent things to different people. To those “This very curious tree was at first The Romantic movement centered on early English settlers, “It was the south- taken notice of about ten or twelve years emotions, and the change from conflict ern boundary of Georgia, separating ago at this place when I attended my to peace signaled a form of contentment. those pioneers from the hostile tribes to father on a botanical excursion in the William Bartram underlined this the south and west; then the river became autumn. We never saw it grow in any movement as he viewed the Altamaha a buffer zone, cushioning relations other place, nor have I ever seen it grow- River from his canoe while collecting between the Spanish of Florida and ing wild in all of my travels from plant specimens to send back home: English in Georgia. The now-vanished Pennsylvania to Point Coupe on the “How gently flow thy peaceful floods, O Fort Barrington attested to the strategic banks of the Mississippi River, which Alatamaha! How sublimely rise to view, location of the Altamaha.” must be allowed a very singular and inac- on thy elevated shores, yon magnolian For thousands of years, the Altamaha countable circumstance. At this place groves, from whose tops the surrounding has journeyed through southeastern there are two or three acres of ground expanse is perfumed by clouds of Georgia, beginning strongly near where it grows plentifully.” incense, blended with the exhaling balm SEARCHING FOR FRANKLINIA THE LOST FLOWER OF THE ALTAMAHA NATURE 29 through the Georgia research through written documents and swamplands and thus have wandered the area around the origi- weren’t able to find the nal location of Fort Barrington. I really colony in the vast and didn’t expect to find the Franklinia’s nearly trackless camellia-like white blooms and I didn’t; Altamaha bottom- however, visiting an area so remote yet so lands. Another specu- filled with compelling natural and lation declares that the human history was the experience I entire plant colony was sought and found. Naturalists John and William dug up and shipped to On October 1, 1941, the Long Bartram saw this Georgia location as England centuries ago, County Garden Club and the State of a place that satisfied all the senses. leaving nothing in the Georgia erected a historical marker on wild. U.S. Highway 84 just north of the MORGAN WAYNE of the liquidamber, and odours continu- Moses Marshall enters this story in Altamaha River. Helen Williams Coxon, ally arising from circumambient aromat- 1790 as the last known collector of the in presenting the slab, borrowed from ic groves of illicium, myrica, laurus and Franklinia in its wild state. And it is here Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a bigonia....” that suggestions are made indicating a Country Churchyard,” in stating, Bartram sent his Franklinia plant and seed collection from Georgia to “How gently flow thy peaceful floods, Philadelphia, where specimens were planted and, in four years, flowered. In another year they produced viable seed, O Alatamaha!” related Robert L. Groover in Jesup great mistake by both Humphrey and “...somewhere in the vastness (of this Sentinel newspaper story in 1965. Moses Marshall. In order to fill the large Altamaha marshland) the Franklinia... Humphrey Marshall first mentioned Franklinia orders made by a London born to blush unseen, wastes its sweet- the Franklinana alatamaha in the 1785 company in 1787 and 1789, the ness on the forest air.” publication, Arbustim Americanum, botanists harvested too many of the rare And so it just might, though even which was the first American botanical plants, thus eradicating the only colony today, no one has rediscovered the lost work.