THE MOUNTAINS OF N. CAROLINA. il 
mountains, ascending the beautiful Roan, Shaik * on a spot 
which commands a view of five States, namely, Kentucky, 
Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, 
the eye ranging to a distance of seventy or eighty miles when 
the air is clear, it was Mr. Fraser's good fortune to discover 
and collect living specimens of the new and splendid Rhodo- 
dendron Catawbiense, from which so many beautiful hybrid 
varieties have since been obtained by skilful cultivators.”* 
The father and son_revisited the Southern States in 1807, 
and the latter,after the decease of his father in 1811, came back 
to this country, and continued his indefatigable researches 
until 1817. 
Many of the rarest plants of these mountains were made 
known, especially to English gardens and collections, by Mr. 
John Lyon, whose indefatigable researches are highly spoken 
of by Pursh, Nuttall, and Elliott. It is very probable that 
he had visited the mountains previous to his assuming the 
charge of Mr. Hamilton’s collections near Philadelphia, 
which he resigned to Pursh in 1802. At a later period, 
however, he assiduously explored this region from Georgia 
as far north at least as the Grandfather Mountain, and died 
at Asheville, in Buncombe County, North Carolina, some 
time between 1814 and 1818. I am informed by my friend, 
the Rev. Mr. Curtis, that his journals and a portion of his 
herbarium were preserved at Asheville for many years, and 
that it is probable they may yet be found. 
Michaux, the younger, author of the Sylva Americana, 
who accompanied his father in some of his earliest journeys, 
returned fo this country in 1801, and crossed the Alleghany 
Mountains twice; first in Pennsylvania on his way to the 
Western States, and the next year in North Carolina, on his 
* Biographical Sketch of John Fraser the Botanical Collector, in 
Hooker’s Companion to the Botanical Magazine, 2, p. 300 (with a portrait) ; 
an article from which I have derived nearly all the information I possess 
respecting the researches of the Frasers in this country, and to which the 
reader is referred for more particular information. A full list of the 
North American plants introduced into England by the father and son, is 
appended to that account, 
