Variations in Quercus, Silene, and Lamium

John Ruskin’s vigorous protest against paying two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face might almost have damned James M. Whistler’s “Nocturne in Black and Gold” to eternal fame, and contrasts sharply with the serenity of an observation from the “Stones of Venice,” viz., “The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.” But it was among the farming people of the general Slabtown area in South Carolina that we found a distinction between the blue-leaf and the yellow-leaf white oaks, nor will we deny the source of our information being what Ruskin would expect. However, mixed with it was a shrewd distinction between the lasting qualities of the two woods. This difference was mentioned in Meridian States Research, VI:4, along with the reddish and yellowish varieties of red maples. Some noteworthy botanical variations in both Carolinas and in Georgia are here recorded, all from the Appalachian Piedmont country.