Speaker: Dr. Larry Mellichamp - Professor, Horticulturist

From the Mountains to the Sea, the Carolinas present a vast diversity of useful and interesting wild plants. The Colonial Period of the Eighteenth Century was the greatest age for botanical discovery in America.

Dr. Mellichamp will talk about the famous people involved in this exploration--Mark Catesby, the Bartrams, and André Michaux to name a few. Well-known agricultural plants provided the economic foundation for the success of the southern colonies, such as tobacco, cotton, rice, indigo. Native species provided subjects for the gardens of the World--such as ginseng, flame azalea, mountain laurel, big leaf magnolia, Oconee bells, and the long-extinct Franklin Tree. Many wild plants had medicinal properties learned from Native Americans, and their common names often derive from these uses. So, don your Colonial breeches, knee socks, and three-cornered hat and come savor.