Notes on the Flora of Middle Georgia 



By Roland M. Harper 



(With Plate 22) 



During part of three years spent at the University of Georgia, 

 which is located in Athens, I had opportunity to make a somewhat 

 extensive study of the interesting flora of that vicinity ; and in the 

 following notes I have brought together briefly some of the re- 

 sults of my observations on this flora. Although there have been 

 other local botanists in Athens for many years, apparently no ob- 

 servations made since Elliott's time on this immediate region have 

 been mentioned in botanical literature. In Elliott's Botany of 

 South Carolina and Georgia (18 16-182 1) many plants, some of 

 them types, are mentioned as having been collected in or near 

 Athens by a Mr. Green, and I have been enabled to verify a num- 

 ber of Mr. Green's stations which had been overlooked by later 

 authors after a lapse of nearly eighty years. 



Athens, the county -seat of Clarke County, is situated in that 

 section of the state known as Middle Georgia, a region well de- 

 fined geologically from the two newer sections, north and south 

 Georgia. Middle Georgia occupies about one third of the area of 

 the state, and is distinguished by its geological formation being 

 wholly Archaean or metamorphic. My botanical explorations of 

 this region, in the spring and fall of 1895 and 1896, and the 

 spring of 1897, were confined mainly to the western half of Clarke 

 County, and portions of the neighboring counties of Jackson, 

 Oconee, Walton and Morgan. This territory which I explored 

 lies in the lower foothills of the Blue Ridge, being entirely south 

 of latitude 34°N., and east of longitude 83 3i'W., and ranging 

 from 500 to 800 feet above sea-level. 



Taking Clarke County as typical of the surrounding region, its 

 characteristic features of soil, topography, etc., may be briefly de- 

 scribed. The predominating soil consists largely of red clay, de- 

 rived from the disintegration of the granitic rocks which underlie 



rywhere 



( 320 ) 



