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“O” is for Oliver, Robert Campbell (1833-1891). Clergyman, gospel mission founder. A native of Edgefield District, Oliver was admitted to the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1863. In time he would become a recognized leader of the Holiness movement as it spread through South Carolina Methodist circles. Oliver is best known for a rescue mission he founded in Columbia to serve as a refuge for homeless and troubled men. In 1888, he purchased a lot at the former of Taylor and Assembly streets in Columbia for what became Oliver Rescue Mission. The following year a gospel tabernacle was constructed. By then Oliver had come under the influence of the Holiness movement. In 1890 Robert Campbell Oliver announced plans to launch a Holiness periodical, Way of Faith.

Epimecis hortaria, the tulip-tree beauty, is a moth species of the Ennominae subfamily found in North America. It is found throughout New England south to Florida and west to Texas and Missouri. The species was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1794. They can be seen flying from late March to early October. Adults are nocturnal and are attracted to lights. The immature caterpillars can be found feeding on Magnolia, Asimina, Populus, Sassafras and Liriodendron.

“C” is for Camden (Kershaw County; 2020 population: 7,248).

“F” is for femme sole traders. Feme sole traders (married women engaged in trade) held a unique status in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South Carolina. The laws and customs of the times prevented married women from undertaking commercial dealings without consent of their husbands. An important exception to this state of affairs, however, was the granting of sole trading status. As a femme sole trader, a married woman became “as if sole” or unmarried in the eyes of the law for her economic status. Because the activities of a femme sole trader could deprive a husband of services that marriage entitled him to, his consent was required, as was his agreement not to meddle in her business ventures. Statutes regarding femme sole trading in South Carolina first appeared in 1712—and were subsequently amended in 1734 and 1744.

A listener finds the larvae of the Dobsonfly along Cayce, South Carolina's Riverwalk.

Our next guest is a Charleston artist whose how-to-paint-and-draw book recently became a best-seller on Amazon.Mike Switzer interviews Robert Maniscalco in Charleston, SC.

When filming at Audubon’s Beidler Forest the Making It Grow team used binoculars to spy on a female Prothonotary warbler sitting on her eggs in a small hole in a cypress knee. Only the female incubates the eggs, which hatch after fourteen days. Then both parents are involved in feeding them, flying back and forth all day long bringing them insects.

Prothonotary warblers have strong site fidelity. Although they have a large nesting area in the US, individual birds return to the place of their birth.

To discover where prothonotary warblers spend their winters, Beidler staff devised an ingenious system. Several birds, weighing about half an ounce, have been fitted with tiny backpacks that record information about where they go. The devices don’t transmit coordinates, they would be too heavy. This system is dependent on having some of the birds, with their site fidelity, successfully making the trip south and returning to the place of their birth. Then they’re trapped, the backpacks removed, and information retrieved.

Professor Greg Reighard, Clemson researcher and international fruit specialist, explained that elderberries are primarily wind-pollinated. Although the flowers are extraordinarily showy, which you think would be a sign that they are attracting all sorts of pollinators, they don’t produce nectar so insect visitors are only collecting pollen. Still, their value to wildlife is high as the hundreds of dark purple fruits that each flower head produces are devoured by over 45 species of birds and racoons among others -- the Missouri Department of Conservation reports that a sharp-eyed naturalist even saw a box turtle eating fruits. But for people the entire plant contains compounds toxic to us, so this is one plant that grazers should not eat in the field. But properly prepared with heat, their berries have long been safely used for pies, wines and jellies.