Oconee Bells
Shortia galacifolia
Picture taken March 15, 2000
In the garden in mid-March, a plant with evergreen leaves resembling Galax, but with pink, 5-petalled, bell-shaped
flowers, is in full bloom. Asa Gray, famous Harvard botanist, considered this plant "perhaps the most interesting
plant in North America." Today, this rare plant is known as Oconee Bells, or The Lost Shortia, and can be found
growing along stream banks in the mountains of North and South Carolina and Georgia. It is also grown in gardens,
and propagated and offered by nurseries dealing with wildflowers. Its scientific name is Shortia galacifolia
. It belongs to the Diapensia family (Diapensiaceae). Other members of this family are Galax (Galax
aphylla), a fairly common plant in our mountains, and Pixie-moss (Pyxidanthera barbulata), a rare plant
found in the coastal plain. There are 8 or 10 other species of Shortia, all of which occur in eastern Asia.
In 1787 the French botanist, Andre Michaux, collected an unusual plant in what he called the "Hautes montagnes
de Carolinie". This specimen was carefully dried, pressed, and eventually placed in Michaux's herbarium in a
museum in Paris. He did not describe or name the plant; he only noted the collection site. In 1839, Harvard
Professor Asa Gray was in Europe and examined Michaux's herbarium. He came across this unnamed specimen and
vowed to find living plants on his return to the U.S. Two years later, after searching the Carolina mountains in
vain Gray, using Michaux's herbarium specimen as a basis, described and named the plant. He named it Shortia
galacifolia after Dr. Charles W. Short, a Kentucky botanist. The specific epithet refers to the leaves
resembling those of Galax.
In 1858 Gray was studying a collection of herbarium specimens from Japan and discovered a plant almost identical
to the American Shortia galacifolia. This plant was later named Shortia uniflora and appeared to be
another example of the similarity of plants found in eastern North America to those found in eastern Asia. Gray
had noticed that while the plants of Japan and eastern North America were extraordinarily similar, these same
plants did not occur in the intervening regions of North America or Eurasia. He later developed an hypothesis to
explain this peculiar distribution. He believed these similar floras were relics of a preglacial flora that once
encircled the globe. This new find renewed interest in finding Michaux's plants. For several years, botanists and
plant hunters searched the Carolina mountains for Shortia, but to no avail. Poor Gray must have just about given
up on seeing a living Shortia galacifolia. Finally, in May 1877, a young man, G. M. Hyams, whose father
was a herbalist, discovered a patch of Shortia near Marion, North Carolina. Specimens were made the next year when
the plants were in flower, and the plants were confirmed as Shortia galacifolia by Gray. It was feared that
these plants were extermined by being over-collected by the enterprising Hyams.
In 1886 Charles Sprague Sargent, first director of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum, using Michaux's journal as his
guide, discovered Shortia growing near Highlands, North Carolina. He believed Michaux's original specimen came
from this site. Thus, almost one hundred years after Michaux had collected his specimen, the lost Shortia was
found!
Plant Name Index
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