The Pink Turtle Head

Discovering long lost “treasures” in the plant, and animal kingdoms, has always ben the attraction of scientists, and botanists, and can be as exciting as any Boys Own Story of derring do. The history of a “missing” flower is almost as romantic an episode as the case of the missing Kokuh dove of 1803, as it links up the present-day activities of botanists with the more exciting era in Colonial times when the woods and vales of the historic Yorktown region of America were visited by the young English law clerk, John Clayton.

He lived in Matthews County, Maryland, but rode over by horseback each day to his office in Gloucester County and frequently made discoveries of new and interesting plants that he sent back by "fast packet" to the noted Swedish scientist, Linnaeus, in the Old World.

A certain famous professor of Holland, named Gronovius, had written a most interesting volume on the flowers and plants found in the territory covered by Clayton. He called it "Flora Virginica", though many of the plants in question were found far outside the state now known as "Virginia," one in particular being called the "Pink Turtle Head". This lovely plant had been first discovered by the young botanist, who had given it a long Latin name which referred in part to its pink color, similar to that of a Damascene rose. This long latin name was cut by Linnaeus to Chelone obliqua, doubtless because of the oddly hanging leaves.

But the plant then disappeared from view, in spite of the constant hunt for it ever since, and it was not until recently that it was again located by J. E. Benedict, Jr., and later by Dr. Edgar T. Wherry, who ran it to earth in a marsh not a stone's throw from the pile of old stones that marked the site of Clayton's home on the Patuxent River.

Dr. Wherry, accompanied by an American authority on this group of plants, Dr. F. W. Pennell, took a trip out on the five mile road that had been followed by Clayton so many years ago. They finally reached the property once occupied by the English naturalist whose love for flowers adorns the history of that county. And down the hill a little way, close to the dense swamp that had hidden it safely all of a hundred and more years, the botanists uncovered a little colony of magenta-pink blossoms that proved to represent the lost species.

By: davidbunch

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