In 1788, André Michaux spent a miserable night in the Carolina backcountry — a leaking roof, fighting dogs, no sleep.⁠ ⁠ By morning he fled outside and noticed a small, unfamiliar plant growing nearby. Low. Woody. Saw-toothed leaves. He wrote that he had not seen it on any other mountain.⁠ ⁠ He collected it. Labeled it “High mountains of Carolina.”⁠ ⁠ And that simple phrase shaped the next forty years.⁠ ⁠ The specimen sat unidentified in a Paris herbarium until Asa Gray named it Shortia galacifolia — and then set out to find it in the wild.⁠ ⁠ He searched the high mountains of Carolina.⁠ And searched.⁠ And searched.⁠ ⁠ Forty years.⁠ ⁠ The plant was eventually found — not where Michaux said it was, but where it had quietly been all along.⁠ ⁠ Sometimes the difference between mystery and clarity is nothing more than where you decide to look.⁠ ⁠ Location matters.⁠ ⁠ Read the full story of the The Case of the Lost Shortia in our January/February issue of American Gardener at ahsgardening.or...