234 BOTANICAL EXCURSION 
hasty visit to the other principal summit, where we found 
nothing that we had not already collected, excepting Arenaria 
glabra, (Michz.), and descended partly by way of the conti- 
guous Yellow Mountain. 
Retracing our steps, we returned next day to the foot of 
the Grandfather Mouníain, and reached our quarters at 
Jefferson the second day after. We had frequently been 
told of an antidote to the bite of the Rattle-snake and 
Copper-head, (reptiles not unfrequent throughout this region;) 
which is thought to possess wonderful efficacy, called Tur- 
man's Snake-root, after an “ Indian Doctor," who first em- 
ployed it; the plant was brought to us by a man who was 
ready to attest its virtues from his personal knowledge, and 
proved to be the Silene stellata! Its use was suggested by 
the markings of the root beneath the bark, in which these 
people find a fancied resemblance to the skin of the Rattle- 
snake. Nearly all the reputed antidotes are equally inert, 
such herbs as Impatiens pallida, &c., being sometimes em- 
ramis griseo-viridibus teretibus. Folia sesqui-biuncialia, lato-ovalia vel 
elliptica, utrinque sepius acuta, glabra, nisi costa supra puberula et 
margines ciliati, subsessilia, infra saturate glauca. Racemi 5-10-flori, 
sepe corymbosi, ad apicem ramulorum anni precedentis solitarii vel ag- 
gregati, Baccz immature corulez, glauce, limbo calycis majusculo 
coronate, decem (nunc abortu quinque :?)-loculares ; loculi pleris (3-6?) 
spermis.—Prof, Dunal (in D.C. prodr. 7, p. 566), notices as an ex- 
traordinary exception'to the character of Vaccinium, a species with an 
8 to 10-celled fruit, and a single (?) seed in each cell. The first-named 
Character is not unfrequent in the genus, several of the more common 
species which I have cursorily examined, exhibiting a more or less com- 
pletely 8-10-celled ovary, but with many ovules in each cell There is à 
small group, however, (Decacnana, Torr. et Gr. ined.), presenting è 
different structure, which is best exemplified in P. resinosum, Ait. The 10 
carpels of this species, enclosed in the baccate calyx, are very slightly c0- 
herent with each other, and become crustaceous or bony nuts, each con- 
taining a single ascending seed. The same is the case in what I take to 
be P. dumosum and V. hirtellum, and probably in some other species 
which have the leaves sprinkled with resinous dots. V. frondosum, 
(which is the V. decamerocarpon of Dunal), is similar in structure, €x- 
cept that the carpels appear to be more coherent and less indurated. 
