IN NORTH CAROLINA. 219 
ride was to Harrisonburg, in Rockingham county, a distance 
of sixty-nine miles from Winchester. From the moment 
we entered the valley, we observed such immense quantities 
of Echium vulgare, that we were no longer surprised at the 
doubt expressed by Pursh, whether it were really an in- 
troduced plant. This * vile foreign weed,” as Dr. Darlington, 
agriculturally speaking, terms this showy plant, is occasion- 
y seen along the road-sides of the northern States; but 
here, for the distance of more than a hundred miles, it has 
taken complete possession, even of many cultivated fields, 
especially where the limestone approaches the surface, pre- 
senting a broad expanse of brilliant blue. It is surprising 
that the farmers should allow a biennial like this so com- 
pletely to overrun their land. Another plant, much more 
extensively introduced here than in the north, (where it 
scarcely deserves the name of a naturalized species,) is Bu- 
pleurum rotundifolium, which in the course of the day we 
met with abundantly. The Marrubium vulgare is equally 
prevalent; and Euphorbia Lathyris must also be added to the 
list of naturalized plants. The little Verbena angustifolia is also 
à common weed. We collected but a single indigenous plant 
of any interest, and one which we by no meaus expected to 
find, viz., Carex stenolepis of Torrey,* which here, as in the 
* It is the C. Frankii of Kunth (1837) and Kunze's Supplement to 
Schkuhr's Caricography, where it is well figured; it was distributed among 
Dr. Franks plants, under the name of C. atherodes, and with the locality 
of Baltimore in Pennsylvania! 1 had always supposed it to be derived 
from some part of the Western States; but since it abounds in the Valley 
of Virginia, it may have been collected near Baltimore, Maryland. By 
the way, we hope the excellent collections, distributed from time to time 
by the Unio Itineraria, are in general more correctly ticketed, than poor 
Frank's small collection from the United States. Not to venture beyond 
the Carices, we may remark that the plant distributed under the name of 
C. blanda is C. Careyana, (Dewey) ; their C. plantaginea is C. anceps, and 
their C. Vieckii is a variety of the same; their C. depauperata var. Ame- 
ricana (C. Hitchcockiana of Dewey) is a large form of C. oligocarpa, (Schk.) 
(the true C. oligocarpa of Schkuhr, but not of other authors, being a small 
State of Prof. Dewey's C. Hitchcockiana); and the C. Ohiotica (for- 
mosa, Dewey ?) Hochst. is C. Shortii. ‘This last, we may add, is the C. 
i R 2 
