Andre and Francois Michaux, and John Fraser, and soon to be followed by Thomas Nuttall, Asa Gray, and Moses Ashley Curtis, among others, John Lyon was among the intrepid plant collectors who first penetrated the mountains of Western North Carolina in the late 18th and early 20th centuries to catalogue the diverse and often unique flora that flourishes here. Of those mentioned in the preceding sentence, Lyons is perhaps the most neglected. An overview of his activities and of his death in Asheville (where his gravesite can still be located) is worthy of the attention of those interested in the region’s history in general and of its botanical aspects in particular.

The war in the Smokies proved to be an intensely personal conflict. A curious conjunction of terrain, history, politics and culture bred in the Smokies ... a tragic division of loyalties and a brutal partisan conflict between supporters of secession and adherents of the Union. This was a war where men rode to the house of a neighbor they had known for many years, called him to his door, and shot him dead; where other men left homes and wives and children and trekked north in cold and rain to serve the army and the cause of their choice; and where still others served in poorly supplied, poorly equipped, nearly forgotten units to protect border and home. This was also a war in which families wanted nothing to do with either side and did everything they could to avoid involvement.

— Noel C. Fisher

Through the years, I’ve written at every opportunity about Aquilla (Quill) Rose — Civil War veteran, fiddle player, storyteller, moonshiner, and hunter — who was surely one of the more picturesque characters ever produced in the Smokies region. As an “original character,” he figured in Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders (1913), wherein Kephart described the people living along Hazel Creek and adjacent watersheds on the North Carolina side of the Smokies years before the park was founded in 1934.

I’m fairly good at the identification of deciduous trees during the flowering and fruiting seasons, when one can observe bark, leaves, general growth habit, and flowers or fruit. I’m less adept during the winter months, when one can observe just bark, buds, and general growth habit.

From time to time, I’ve contemplated compiling an anthology of travel writing from Western North Carolina. Such a volume would commence with the descriptions of the region compiled by the Moravian explorer Bishop Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg in the early 1750s. Next would be William Bartram, who entered the western tip of the state in 1775 and published his famous Travels’ in 1791. In the 19th century, the accounts were numerous, with my favorite being In the Heart of the Alleghenies (1883) by William G. Zeigler and Ben S. Grosscup. And accounts were equally numerous during the next century. The difficulty would lie not in finding materials but in winnowing it all down to manageable proportions. One late 20th century writer that I’d insist on including would be the irascible Bill Bryson.

Have you started making your 2006 gardening plans yet? It’s time. The garden catalogs started arriving in the mail several weeks ago: Johnny’s, Burpee’s, Pine Tree, Park’s, Shumway’s, Seeds of Change, etc. Folks have been studying these sorts of publications with pleasure for decades.

“Woven goods—baskets and mats—document what women did, when, and how. They illuminate the work of women who transformed the environments that produced materials for basketry. They point to women’s roles in ceremonial, subsistence, and exchange systems. As objects created and utilized by women, baskets and mats conserved and conveyed their concepts, ideas, experience, and expertise. They asserted women’s cultural identity and reflected their values.”

— Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry, by Sarah H. Hill (University of North Carolina Press, 1997)

The eastern hemlock has long been one of my favorite trees. Like many people reading this column, my wife, Elizabeth, and I have a number of very large specimens growing on our property, especially alongside a creek that traverses the cove we live in. And, of course, we’re very concerned about losing these wonderful trees to the hemlock woolly adelgid infestation that is currently ravaging the southern mountains. All of our hemlocks show signs of the infestation, and we will hate to lose them. This column, then, is sort of an ode to the hemlock.