Michaux's Discovery 1796

Yellowwood is among the rarest trees of eastern North America, found mostly on limestone cliffs in Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. In June it carries fragrant white flowers in drooping clusters that look like wisteria, and in fall its leaves turn yellow, gold and orange. Botanists now call it Cladrastis kentukea; the name Cladrastis lutea survives as a synonym. The French botanist who recorded it here, André Michaux, spent years exploring the American interior, and the General Assembly made the tree Tennessee's Bicentennial tree in 1991.

What the plaque says

Michaux's Discovery 1796 Traveling through the Tennessee country, André Michaux, a French botanist, arrived at Fort Blount on the first of March. On the next day in the vicinity of Flynn's Creek about 12 miles from the fort, he discovered the native ornamental yellowwood, scientifically known as Cladrastis lutea. It was designated Tennessee's Bicentennial tree in 1991 by the Tennessee General Assembly.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cummins Falls State Park — 8.7 mi
  A 75-foot waterfall and swimming hole on the Blackburn Fork, saved from a housing development in 2011 and opened as Tennessee's 54th state park.
• Cookeville Depot Museum — 16 mi
  The 1909 Tennessee Central Railroad depot in Cookeville's west side, now a museum with a model of the town in 1955 and a steam engine in the yard.
• Standing Stone State Park — 16 mi
  A New Deal park on Mill Creek named for a vanished stone that Native peoples revered and railroad builders blasted, with a lake, 1930s cabins and a marbles championship.
• Red Boiling Springs — 16 mi
  A Macon County spa town built around red sulphur springs, with five kinds of mineral water, red-painted pumps and the surviving hotels of a resort that once held more than a dozen.

More markers nearby

• Orion Clemenes 1825-1897 — steps away
• Alvan Cullen Gillem July 29, 1830 - December 2, 1875 — steps away
• The Austin Peay Bridge — 1.3 mi
• Judge John Jordan Gore — 3.2 mi