Saturday June 6, 2026, Asheville Botanical Garden
Meeting and Program
“Exploring the Careers of the Botanical Explorers of the Southern Appalachians”
with Charlie Williams
Charlie Williams, who has done extensive research on early botanists in this area and published books on the subject, will tell us about these early endeavors in our mountains. Between around 1770 and 1815 a small group of botanists explored the southern Appalachians for plants then unknown to science. Much of this pioneering scientific work was done by five men, William Bartram, Andre and Francois Andre Michaux, John Fraser and John Lyon. Their names and contributions to science should be better known and will be explored in this presentation.
NC Native Plant Society member, Charlie Williams, was featured in SMITHSONIAN! We know him as a long-time volunteer at the James Matthews Mecklenburg County Herbarium, former Mecklenburg County librarian, author and Andre Michaux doppelgänger. In pursuit of Michaux’s travels, Charlie “rediscovered” the Bigleaf Magnolia in Gaston County. Charlie is the editor of André Michaux in North America: Journals and Letters, 1785–1797.