Sometime in 1765, American botanist John Bartram and his son, William, were prowling through what is now the state of Georgia in search of new and unusual plants.\u00a0 While botanizing near the banks of the Altamaha River in southeastern Georgia, they found a group of interesting trees or large shrubs with white, camellia-like flowers.\u00a0 In their observations they noted the trees\u2019 resemblance to a species they already knew, the loblolly bay or Gordonia lasianthus, which bears similar blossoms.\u00a0 Eventually the new species was christened Franklinia alatamaha, in honor of the Bartrams\u2019 great friend, Benjamin Franklin, and the Georgia location where the species was first sighted.\u00a0 The \u201calatamaha\u201d is a corruption or correction \u2013 it is hard to say which \u2013 of the name of the Georgia river.<\/p>\n
The tree sighted by the Bartrams was and is a member of the tea or Theaceae family.\u00a0 They were not wrong to compare it to the loblolly bay, another tea family plant, as is the camellia.\u00a0 Franklinias stand between ten and twenty feet tall, with a spread of 6 to 18 feet and an upright, spreading habit.\u00a0 The long leaves are roughly oval-shaped and glossy.\u00a0 Green in summer, they turn orange-red in fall, remaining on the trees for a relatively long time.\u00a0 Franklinias bloom in mid to late summer, bearing flowers that are at least three inches across with white petals and prominent golden stamens in the middle.\u00a0 Rounded, woody fruits follow the flowers, bearing five seed-filled chambers.<\/p>\n
The Bartrams collected some of those seeds and possibly young plants and took them back to their botanical garden\/nursery in Philadelphia, where they grew the first Franklinias in domestic cultivation.\u00a0 As was their habit, they shared seeds and young trees with friends and colleagues in the American colonies.\u00a0 Their acts of discovery and generosity saved the Franklinia, which has not been seen in the wild since 1790 or possibly 1804.\u00a0 All living Franklinias are descendants of the trees cultivated by the Bartrams.\u00a0 The species still flourishes at Bartram\u2019s Garden in Philadelphia, which is now open to the public as a botanical institution.<\/p>\n
The Franklinia, which is the only species in its genus, is cloaked in both history and mystery.\u00a0 For reasons that have never been definitively explained, the trees were on their way to extinction when the Bartram party found them.\u00a0 In cultivation they have always succeeded best in areas considerably north of their home territory.\u00a0 As with any historical conundrum, scientists have sought answers by going over the written testimony of the Bartrams and the few others who observed the Franklinia in its natural state.\u00a0 The tree\u2019s DNA has been combed for clues.\u00a0 Given the longstanding questions about the species and the human propensity for explaining strange occurrences by concocting far-fetched plots, schemes and scenarios, it is a wonder that no one has ever put forth a Franklinia conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n
Franklinia has intrigued me for a long time.\u00a0 If I had the space in my garden, I would try growing it.\u00a0 Michael Dirr, woody plant guru and Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, calls Franklinia \u201can aristocrat because of its interesting history,\u201d and goes on to say,\u00a0 \u201c\u2026if one is so fortunate to procure this species, he\/she should provide it a place of prominence in the garden;…\u201d\u00a0 I may heed Professor Dirr\u2019s advice and do it yet, if I follow my inclination to eliminate a few less stellar species.<\/p>\n
The Franklinia\u2019s story has still another twist.\u00a0 Fate may have saved the species from immediate extinction by arranging for the Bartrams to find some of the few surviving trees in 1765.\u00a0 Now, the problem is the Franklinia gene pool.\u00a0 Since all the modern-day trees are descended from a very small number of individuals, the species lacks the genetic diversity that comes from a large population and gene pool.\u00a0 This makes it susceptible to declining vigor in the long term and the possibility of being wiped out by disease in the shorter term.\u00a0 Plant scientists are concerned and that has led a cross breeding experiment involving Franklina and a related Asian tree, Schima argentea.\u00a0 Schima is common, tolerant of a wide range of conditions and evergreen.\u00a0 Its flowers are much like those of Franklinia.\u00a0 Cross breeding efforts took place at North Carolina State University\u2019s Mountain Horticultural Crops Research Station under the direction of Dr. Thomas Ranney.\u00a0 The hybrid offspring, christened x Schimlinia floribunda, seem to be vigorous, growing quickly and flowering in summer like Franklinia.\u00a0 Dr. Ranney and his focused their efforts on producing a new, hardy ornamental tree, especially for use in the South.\u00a0 However, if scientists do enough back crossing of Franklinias and the Franklinia\/Schima hybrids, perhaps they will eventually come up with something that is over ninety percent Franklinia, but with enough genetic diversity to keep the trees hale and hearty for centuries to come.<\/p>\n
John and William Bartram, both good plantsman, would undoubtedly have approved of the North Carolina effort.\u00a0 Ben Franklin, a passionate student of science, would most likely have given the nod as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometime in 1765, American botanist John Bartram and his son, William, were prowling through what is now the state of Georgia in search of new and unusual plants.\u00a0 While botanizing near the banks of the Altamaha River in southeastern Georgia, they found a group of interesting trees or large shrubs with white, camellia-like flowers.\u00a0 In … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[684,687,686,688,683,685],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-summer","tag-american-native-trees","tag-bartrams-garden","tag-benjamin-franklin","tag-flowering-trees","tag-franklinia","tag-john-bartram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":946,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}