Archived Online Exhibit

Some Noteworthy Plants

This species is native to the New World, having been taken to Portugal before its ultimate return to America, as one of the two sources of cultivated indigo (the other species is I. tinctoria).  The occurrence of this plant in an old agricultural field in 1840 at Ravenel’s plantation “Northampton” suggests substantial longevity of the seeds while in the ground.  Ravenel refers to the persistence of this species following cultivation in a short publication in 1876 (Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 6(18): 93-94), 36 years after the collection at hand.  Ravenel suggests in this note that indigo was perhaps commonly seen “on old settled places along the seabound [sic].” (It is not seen any longer.)

Ravenel's experience in Texas, during the spring of 1869, resulted in considerable collection of grasses and sedges.  This species is rather widespread in the Southeast, from Texas to Virginia.

His collection numbered 160, from a "wet prairie near Indianola" (a specimen that is represented in the Converse/USC collection) was used as the type specimen for "Rhynchospora indianolensis", named by John K. Small (1869-1938), premier botanist of the Southeast, who published his Flora of the Southeastern United States in 1903. The holotype is at the New York Botanical Garden. Indianola is a coastal town, located on Madagordo Bay, southwest of Houston. Rhynchospora indianolensis is a Texas endemic, not occurring outside the state.
A specimen of "hooded pitcher plant" from the low country
J[oseph]. H[inson].M[Mellichamp]. S.C.
20 June [18]'74
Honey Trail from cleft to ground
Current name: Sarracenia minor Walter, "Hooded pitcher plant."

Collected by J. H.  Mellichamp, perhaps from savanna habitat somewhere in Beaufort or Jasper County.  Mellichamp's curious note refers to the pattern of "light spots", or "fenestrations" on the outer surface of the pitcher.  This species belongs to a fascinating group of carnivorous plants, whose leaves are modified into hollow tubes, which, when appropriately filled with water and enzymes, are able to attract, drown and digest insects.  Although not endangered, this and other species of Sarracenia are threatened by habitat loss in South Carolina, and all of the species are probably declining in numbers.

This eastern species was originally described by André Michaux (1746-1802) from plants growing in North Carolina.  Ravenel collected it at least once in the vicinity of Stone Mountain, Georgia, and this plant is scattered in the western piedmont of Georgia today.  It is not known from existing populations, however, at Tallulah Falls, or from herbarium specimens at the University of Georgia.  The plants are rather widely known in cultivation presently, and are a regular attraction in the early summer at Columbia's Robert Mills House on Blanding Street.

A new species of a fresh-water alga

2.  Nitella praelonga A. Braun
n. sp.
1851     growing submerged in Santee Canal
HWRavenel  S.C.
Current name: Nitella cernua A. Braun var. praelonga (A. Braun) Wood.

Ravenel made collections of this alga from the Santee Canal in 1851.  He sent some of his specimens to George Engelmann in St. Louis, who forwarded them to Alexander Braun (1805-1877), a German botanist studying algae.  Braun treated Ravenel's plants as a new species in 1856.

Ravenel lamented in 1876 that "the locality [of the algal collection] is now lost, as the old Santee Canal (cut nearly 100 years ago to connect the Santee and Cooper Rivers) has been abandoned since the opening of the North-Eastern Railroad. It may possibly be found in still water in the vicinity. My specimens were collected in June, when in bloom."