Oconee County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 78,607. Its county seat is Walhalla and its largest city is Seneca. Oconee County is included in the Seneca, SC Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC Combined Statistical Area. South Carolina Highway 11, the Cherokee Foothills National Scenic Highway, begins in southern Oconee County at Interstate Highway 85 at the Georgia state line.
Seneca is a city in Oconee County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 8,102 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Seneca Micropolitan Statistical Area, an (MSA) that includes all of Oconee County, and that is included within the greater Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, South Carolina Combined Statistical Area. Seneca was named for the nearby Cherokee town of Isunigu, which English colonists knew as "Seneca Town".
Thomas Nuttall was an English botanist and zoologist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841.
John Torrey was an American botanist, chemist, and physician. Throughout much of his career, he was a teacher of chemistry, often at multiple universities, while he also pursued botanical work, focusing on the flora of North America. His most renowned works include studies of the New York flora, the Mexican Boundary, the Pacific railroad surveys, and the uncompleted Flora of North America.
Asa Gray is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Gray was adamant that a genetic connection must exist between all members of a species. He was also strongly opposed to the ideas of hybridization within one generation and special creation in the sense of its not allowing for evolution. He was a strong supporter of Darwin, although Gray's theistic evolution was guided by a Creator.
Arundinaria, commonly known as canes, is a genus of bamboo in the grass family. Arundinaria is the only bamboo native to south and southeastern North America, with a native range from Maryland south to Florida and west to the southern Ohio Valley and Texas. Within this region they are found from the Coastal Plain to medium elevations in the Appalachian Mountains. Arundinaria species have running rhizomes and have slender, woody culms that reach heights from 0.5 to 8 metres.
Gorges State Park is a 7,709-acre (31.20 km2) North Carolina state park in Transylvania County, North Carolina in the United States and along with other conservation lands is part of a 100,000+ acre conservation corridor stretching some 80 miles along the NC/SC state line. The land, along Jocassee Gorges, was purchased by the state from Duke Energy Corporation in 1999. It is North Carolina's westernmost state park and one of the state's newest. The park is adjacent to part of the Pisgah National Forest and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission's Toxaway Game Land. Gorges State Park provides the principal access to the Horsepasture River on these adjoining public lands.
Lake Jocassee is a 7,500-acre (30 km2), 300-foot (91 m) deep reservoir in northwest South Carolina. It was created in 1973 by the state in partnership with Duke Power. The lake is known for the clean and cold Appalachian mountain rivers that flow into it, keeping its waters cool and clear year-round. The Jocassee Dam, which forms the lake, is 385 feet (117 m) high and 1,750 feet (530 m) long. The lake is within Devils Fork State Park.
Diapensiaceae is a small family of flowering plants, which includes 15 species in 6 genera. The genera include Berneuxia Decne., Diapensia L., Galax Sims, Pyxidanthera Michx., Shortia Torr. & A.Gray, and Schizocodon Siebold & Zucc.. Members of this family have little economic importance; however, some members are cultivated by florists.
Joseph Whipple Congdon was a lawyer by trade who contributed significantly to early botanical exploration in California, particularly in the Yosemite region, where he resided in Mariposa from 1882 until 1905. Congdon was born in Pomfret, Connecticut and graduated Brown University with the class of 1855. He was admitted to the bar in Providence, Rhode Island in 1860. He served a term in the Rhode Island legislature for 1878–79. The "Analytical Class-Book of Botany", coauthored with his aunt, [carrying the epigram "Science is the only interpreter of Nature"] antedated by two years the first edition of Class Book of Botany, by Asa Gray. Congdon was the botanist whom correctly diagnosed the rediscovery of the long-lost Shortia galacifolia, a relict herb that had been long sought by Gray.
The Toxaway River is a 21.4-mile-long (34.4 km) waterway that flows south from headwaters in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into Lake Toxaway and over Toxaway Falls, after which it crosses into South Carolina and enters Lake Jocassee, the reservoir behind Lake Jocassee Dam.
The Whitewater River is a 14.6-mile-long (23.5 km) river that flows south from headwaters in Transylvania County, North Carolina, over Upper Whitewater Falls and Lower Whitewater Falls before crossing into South Carolina and entering Lake Jocassee, the reservoir behind Lake Jocassee Dam.
The Keowee River is created by the confluence of the Toxaway River and the Whitewater River in northern Oconee County, South Carolina. The confluence is today submerged beneath the waters of Lake Jocassee, a reservoir created by Lake Jocassee Dam.
Keowee was a Cherokee town in the far northwest corner of present-day South Carolina. It was the principal town of what were called the seven Lower Towns, located along the Keowee River. Keowee was situated on the Lower Cherokee Traders' Path, part of the Upper Road through the Piedmont. In 1752 the Cherokee established New Keowee Town nearby, off the traders' path but in a more defensible location.
The Oconee Nuclear Station is a nuclear power station located on Lake Keowee near Seneca, South Carolina, and has an energy output capacity of over 2,500 megawatts. It is the second nuclear power station in the United States to have its operating license extended for an additional twenty years by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Gaylussacia brachycera, commonly known as box huckleberry or box-leaved whortleberry, is a low North American shrub related to the blueberry and the other huckleberries. It is native to the east-central United States.
William Baldwin was an American physician and botanist who is today remembered for his significant contributions to botanical studies, especially Cyperaceae. He lived in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Georgia, and served as a ship's surgeon on two voyages overseas. He published only two scientific papers, but his major contributions were in the knowledge that he imparted to other botanists in his letters to them and in the thousands of specimens that he provided for their herbaria. He wrote letters to Henry Muhlenberg, Stephen Elliott, William Darlington, Zaccheus Collins, and others. His most important collections were from Georgia, Florida, and eastern South America. When he died, he left a large herbarium that proved to be of great value, especially to Lewis David von Schweinitz, John Torrey, and Asa Gray. He had a special interest in the plant family Cyperaceae and his incomplete, unpublished manuscripts were a major source for monographs by John Torrey and Asa Gray. The historian Joseph Ewan has said that "Baldwin's treatment of a number of genera, especially in the Cyperaceae, showed penetrating observation, understanding, and diagnosis". The genus Balduina was named for him by Thomas Nuttall. Most of what we know of him is from the biography written by his friend, William Darlington, in 1843.
Moses Ashley Curtis was a noted American botanist.
Shortia is a small genus of subshrubs or perennial herbs in the family Diapensiaceae. There are five species, four in Asia and one in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America. They are found in mountainous areas, generally from 1,000–2,000 metres (3,300–6,600 ft) elevation. All have restricted ranges and are generally considered rare. Three of the species, S. galacifolia, S. soldanelloides, and S. uniflora are often cultivated. The genus was by Asa Gray named after botanist Charles Wilkins Short. In Gray's diary entry for April 8, 1839, he named the genus after Charles Wilkins Short because the plant was native to America in a region close to where Short lived, which was Kentucky. Short and Gray never met but they corresponded with one another frequently. Short never saw a live nor dried specimen of his namesake genus.
Myriopteris lanosa, the hairy lip fern, is a moderately-sized fern of the eastern United States, a member of the family Pteridaceae. Its leaves and stem are sparsely covered in hairs, but lack scales, hence its common name. One of the cheilanthoid ferns, it was usually classified in the genus Cheilanthes until 2013, when the genus Myriopteris was again recognized as separate from Cheilanthes. It typically grows in shallow, dry, soil, often in rocky habitats.
