The Japonicas, Banksia, Lamarque, and Cherokee roses bloomed as usual in the late spring of 1861 alongside wild white lilies in their first glory, and the beautiful but possessive wisteria. Soon the cotton blooms would make their first appearance, and if, like Caroline Porcher, one stood far enough away from the labor and sweat that brought them forth, it was possible to appreciate the beauty of the fruit of the hibiscus plant. In the time after the Civil War, Porcher's husband recalled how much she had admired “the beauty of the cotton field” and enjoyed “the white blooms on the first day that turned red the next before falling off.”1 From their perch as members of South Carolina's slaveholding and ruling class and with the screening distance of power and privilege, Caroline and Frederick A. Porcher had the luxury of contemplating cotton blossoms and cotton fields, like Japonica roses,...

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