Franklin Tree

Franklinia alatamaha was found along the Altamaha River in Georgia in 1765 and named for Benjamin Franklin. By 1803 it was extinct in the wild, and it survives today only in cultivation, kept alive in botanical gardens and a few private collections. Like most things named after Franklin, from prestigious institutions to the hundred-dollar bill, it functions only under careful human accounting. Left to the unmanaged wild, it simply stopped.