More than a hundred years ago a new flower was found in the wild and rugged mountains of North Carolina by Michaux, a Frenchman, who had traversed many lands and known many perils and adventures in his search for rare plants. He had traveled through his native country and Spain, climbed the Pyrenees, crossed sea and desert, been despoiled by Arab robbers, so that he arrived in Persia with nothing but his books left to him of his baggage. Luckily he cured the Shah of an illness, and was allowed to carry back to France many Eastern plants. He was then sent by his country to explore the forests of North America. In the mountainous country of North Carolina there were no roads, only Indian trails, traversed by a few missionaries and traders. In this wild and lonely region he found a new flower, that belonged to no recognized genus, and was mentioned by no previous botanist. It was a modest little flower; its pure white cup rises on a wand-like stem in the midst of shining and tender leaves, round in shape and prettily edged. He secured a specimen, but he had no leisure to study its habits in the “montagnes sauvages,” as he called these mountains in his own language. Rumors reached him of the French Revolution, and he immediately hastened to return home. He was shipwrecked on the voyage and lost nearly all his collections.

From this time the flower was lost, so far as any knowledge of its existence was concerned. But after the death of Michaux, our botanist, Dr. Asa Gray, happened to be in Paris with the son, the younger Michaux, also a lover of plants. Very naturally Michaux showed his American guest his father’s new specimens of American plants that had escaped the shipwreck, and Dr. Gray was much interested in this little flower, marked “Unknown.”

When he returned to the United States he sought it in vain. All trace seemed to have disappeared. Year after year when he heard of anyone going to the North Carolina mountains he would beg the person to look for the lost flower.

At last, someone, by chance, found a blossom, in early spring, growing in a different locality, and not recognizing its genus or species, sent it to Dr. Gray, as one of the highest botanical authorities.

As soon as Dr. Gray saw it he exclaimed, with delight: “Why, this is the little unknown flower of Michaux.”

After its strange disappearance of a century it had again come to light. It has since been found in various parts of upper South Carolina, and is now cultivated by more than one florist and grower of rare plants. Its leaves are like those of the southern wild flower, the Galax, akin to the Pyxie or flowering moss, so it has been placed in the same family and named Shortia galacifolia, i. e., with a leaf like Galax. The first name is given in honor of Short, the botanist, a lovely way of keeping alive the remembrance of one who loved flowers.

Ella F. Mosby.