A friend was telling me about taking her son to Gatlinburg for a vacation when he was twelve. In the summer of 1973, I hitched north to Boston to rent my apartment for graduate school. A friend from FSU anthropology was a ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains that summer. I hitched up I-75 and came into her ranger station from the west. 

Through Gatlinburg. 

A horrible overbuilt garish tourist trap!!!

Remember I was a botanist? I taught classes on edible wild plants. There is a goldenrod, Solidago odora, Sweet Goldenrod. It has a licorice smell and flavor. I finally found this extremely rare plant 6,000 feet up in the Great Smokies. It had been harvested almost to extinction during the Revolutionary War. The British had cut off tea to the colonies. This plant was used as a substitute for a hot beverage. 

For years I would run my hand over every damned flowering panicle of every damned goldenrod I saw! No luck. No smell of anise. One of the hikes we took was up an almost vertical trail alongside a rocky brook. And there it was. A flowering goldenrod, I reached out. Pulled the flowerhead through my palm. Put my hand to my nose. And SCREAMED with joy. I had found one! I cannot tell you how exciting that moment was for me up in the mountains. August, 1973.

And oh, yeah, we had to climb that steep mountain trail to get up to where it was. Had no idea what could be awaiting me up there. We were just hiking. 

I am still convinced it was almost extinct even that long after the revolutionary war because of my failure to find it. But apparently over the years enough people were interested in it that nurseries began to propagate it and sell the seeds. It has apparently become much more common in the south. So a part of our American Revolutionary War horticultural heritage has been restored. Now that I know that I am going to start pulling goldenrod flower heads through my hand again to recover that experience. 

The children of Alabama loved it well enough to have chosen it for their state flower. It ranks high in popularity as a state symbol. Four states have chosen the rose and three the goldenrod: Nebraska and Kentucky, as well as Alabama. And the bees and butterflies throng to it. So I am going to get some seed and add it to my bee garden. I have let my yard naturalize so there are more flowering weeds, yes weeds, to feed the bees and wasps which are all frankly endangered for lack of food.

Again:

Think globally. Act locally.