The Twelve Days of Christmas by N.R. Walker

Most new arrivals of enslaved people were sold at “slave yards” at public sites along the Savannah River ( GHQ, vol, 68, no.2, p. Hall and his partner, John Inglis, were among the most active slave merchants in Savannah, GA, handling the auction of numerous cargoes of enslaved people brought into the port of Savannah and even financing the purchases of enslaved people by other Georgia plantation owners. Nathaniel Hall and his family were wealthy slave owners. A prominent man in business and political affairs, Nathaniel Hall was nevertheless a gardener who sought the best plantings for his Morton Hall Plantation. at his Morton Hall plantation on the Savannah River. The botanist Stephen Elliot noted in 1814 that the Cherokee Rose was cultivated prior to the Revolutionary War by Nathaniel Hall, Esq. Apparently, this Chinese import naturalized so well, it soon came to be regarded as a native species of Georgia. Other horticultural specimens are recorded as having been shipped to American ports from Hong Kong prior to the Revolutionary War. It was probably brought by sailing ship into the port of Savannah by the mid 1700s, and by 1775 it was being cultivated in the gardens of Georgia. Botanical illustration from The Roses, 1817, by Pierre-Joseph Redouté.Īdopted by the Georgia legislature as the state flower in 1916, Georgia’s beloved Cherokee Rose is now known to have originated in China. A vigorous species with large prickles, attractive, glossy, trifoliate dark green leaves and solitary, flat, single, scented white flowers in summer, to 10cm across, with scalloped petals and golden stamens, followed by bristly, orange-red hips.

The three inch diameter flowers are fragrant, with pure white petals and yellow stamens. Take a walk in the woods of Berrien County in April, or drive down Park Street in Ray City and you may see long garlands of simple white roses climbing to heights of up to 20 or 30 feet, rambling over other shrubs and small trees.

The Twelve Days of Christmas by N.R. Walker