218 BOTANICAL EXCURSION 
nor, so far as we are aware, by any other collector, and being 
from its situation the most accessible to a traveller from the 
north, we determined to devote to its examination the prin- 
cipal part of the time allotted to our own excursion. 
Intending to reach this remote region by way of theValley of 
Virginia, we left New York on the evening of the 23rd of June, 
and travelling by railroad, arrived at Winchester, a distance 
of 300 miles, before sunset of the following day. At Harper's 
Ferry, where the Potomac, joined by the Shenandoah, forces 
its way through the Blue Ridge, in the midst of some of the 
most pieturesque scenery in the United States, we merely 
stopped to dine, and were therefore disappointed in our hope 
of collecting Sedum telephioides, S. pulchellum, Paronychia 
dichotoma, and Draba ramosissima; all of which grow here 
upon the rocks. We observed the first in passing, but it 
was not yet in flower. On the rocky banks of the Potomac, 
below Harper’s Ferry, we saw, for the first time, the common 
Locust-tree (Robinia pseudacacia) decidedly indigenous. It 
probably extends to the southern countries of Pennsylvania, 
and, from this point southward, is everywhere abundant; but 
we did not meet with it east of the Blue Ridge. From 
Winchester, the shire-town of Frederick County, we pro- 
ceeded by stage-coach, directly up the Valley of Virginia, as 
that portion of the State is called which lies between the 
unbroken Blue Ridge, and the most easterly ranges of the 
Alleghanies. From the Potomac to the sources of the She- 
nandoah, it is, strictly speaking, a valley, from twenty to 
thirty miles in width, with a strong, chiefly limestone soil, of 
great fertility. lt is scarcely interrupted, indeed, up to where 
the Roanoke rises ; but a branch of the Alleghanies inter- 
venes between the latter and New River, as the upper part 
of the Great Kenhawa is termed ; from which point it loses 
its character in some degree, and is exclusively trav 
by the western waters. The same valley extends to the 
north and east, through Maryland and Pennsylvania, and 
even into the State of New York, preserving thoughout the 
same geological character and fertile soil Our first day's 
