Taken from the portrait of the chief in Bartram's frontispiece.—Ed.
"The tall aspiring Gordonia lacianthus ... gradually changing colour, from green to golden yellow, from that to a scarlet, from scarlet to crimson, and lastly to a brownish purple, ... so that it may be said to change and renew its garments every morning throughout the year."
See Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East Florida, the Cherokee Country, etc., by William Bartram (1791), pp. 159, 160.—Ed.
"Its thick foliage of a dark green colour is flowered over with large milk-white, fragrant blossoms, ... renewed every morning, and that in such incredible profusion that the tree appears silvered over with them, and the ground beneath covered with the fallen flowers. It, at the same time, continually pushes forth new twigs, with young buds on them."
(Bartram's Travels, etc., p. 159.)—Ed.