Shortia galacifolia Torr. & A. Gray:
United States (North America)

United States

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

Global Range: Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia (Weakely 2002).

Comments: Shady woods and stream banks with rich, humus-enriched soils. Most abundant on deep ravine slopes where cool, humid conditions prevail. Often in rhododendron thickets within mixed hardwood stands.

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: N2 - Imperiled

Rounded Global Status Rank: G2 - Imperiled

Reasons: Endemic to a small part of the southern Appalachian Mountains. The species has lost populations in the past due to horticultural collection, and multiple dam construction projects; the long-looked-for type locality is now under the waters of Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. Despite its very local distribution, the species is abundant at most of its few remaining sites.

Comments: Threatened by horticultural collecting, logging, and exotic plants such as Japanese honeysuckle (Patrick et al. 1995).

Comments: This is probably the most famous of the "Appalachian lost plants" - plants that were collected once and then, despite painstaking reconstructions of the original collector's route, and intensive searching, not relocated for years. In this case, nearly 100 years past between the time the first small specimen was taken in the late 1700s, and the rediscovery of the species in 1886. The nearest relatives of this distinctive North American Shortia are in eastern Asia.