A BOTANICAL BONANZA. 653 



midable an obstacle to its general use, that the system had to be 

 given up. 



Lastly, the extremely fine and durable paint, cork-black, or Span- 

 ish-black, is made from carbonized chips and waste of cork. 



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T 



A BOTANICAL BONANZA. 



Br F. E. BOYNTON. 



1AKE a map of the Southern States, and find a point directly north- 

 west of the spot where North Carolina, South Carolina, and 

 Georgia corner. Taking this for a center, describe a circle, whose ra- 

 dius shall extend twenty miles. 



Within this bound will be represented a section which probably 

 contains more interesting and rare plants than can be found in any 

 part of the United States occupying the same area. 



This district was undoubtedly visited by the elder Michaux. Pro- 

 fessor Sargent furnishes me with a short extract from the old botan- 

 ist's journal, the original of which is in the possession of the Philadel- 

 phia Academy of Sciences, in which he describes a trip he made up the 

 Keowee River, and finally up the mountain-streams which form the 

 head-waters of the Keowee. This route naturally led him to pass 

 through the region that I have described. Here it was that Hobinia 

 viscosa and /Shortia galacifolia were first found two plants which 

 were for so long a time thought to be lost species. 



Although much of the Alleghany Mountain region has been thor- 

 oughly explored by later botanists, this particular spot seems to have 

 been unnoticed until lately probably on account of its being so diffi- 

 cult to reach from any railroad-station, for the district embraces a 

 verv wild and broken mountain-resrion. 



Not far from where I proposed to make the center of our circle, 

 Rhododendron Vaseyi grows in profusion. This showy plant is found 

 along an old, long-traveled trail, but was unnoticed until a short time 

 ago. Tsuga Caroliniana, the new and rare hemlock, is common on a 

 mountain (Whitesides) which has been visited annually by tourists 

 for half a century, but it remained unnoticed until within a short time. 

 Hobinia viscosa is a common plant on nearly all the mountain-tops 

 around, but was searched for in vain for nearly a century until it was 

 rediscovered a few years ago. One circumstance, which perhaps 

 helped to obscure it, is that in its natural state it is only a low shrub, 

 not much larger than its near relative, JR. hispida, with which it is as- 

 sociated, while in cultivation it makes a considerable tree. Professor 

 Sargent, while exploring the head-waters of the Keowee, last Septem- 

 ber (1886), in search of Magnolia cordata, obtained a plant which 



proved to be the rare Shortia galacifolia. Since then it has been 



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