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Who Cares? ‍
‍Contained in the Jocassee Gorges within the boundaries of four intersecting highways grows this good Earth’s entire native population of Shortia galacifolia. Shortia is a plant. It hugs the ground in dense mats of shiny evergreen leaves, and for a scant few weeks in early Spring, its diminutive, sparkling white flowers attract botanists and other plant nerds to this corner of South Carolina. In March of 1944, one such neophyte botanist by the name of Alton Prince traveled from Maine to see Shortia galacifolia in the Jocassee Gorges. On the day he came into Jocassee Valley, a road crew was at work with a bulldozer on the road alongside the Whitewater River, where Shortia had been known to grow. Alton did get to see the plants, further along, where the road crew had yet to reach…hundreds of them, blooming. Over the next two years young Mr. Prince revisited the same place, and found the road widening and subsequent lumbering operations had almost eliminated those colonies of Shortia. ~K