IN NORTH CAROLINA. 288 
one horse), capable of carrying our luggage and a single per- 
son besides the driver, a simple shoemaker, who had never 
before undertaken so formidable a journey, and who, accord- 
ingly, proved entirely wanting in the skill and tact necessary 
for conducting so frail a vehicle over such difficult mountain- 
tracks, for roads they can scarcely be called. He had first 
to ascend the steep ridge, interposed between the Middle 
and the South Forks of the Holston, called Brushy Moun- 
tain; during the ascent of which, we commenced botanizing 
in earnest, The first interesting plant we met with, was 
Saxifraga erosa of Pursh, but only with ripe fruit, and even 
with the seeds for the most part fallen from the capsules. 
The same locality also furnished us with a few specimens of 
the pretty Thalictrum filipes, Torr. et Grev. (to which the 
name of T. clavatum, D.C. must be restored), a plant which 
abounds all along the cold and clear brooks throughout the 
mountains of North Carolina, where it could not well have 
escaped the notice of Michaux, in whose herbarium De 
Candolle found the specimen (with no indication of its ha- 
bitat), on which his 7. clavatum was established. The au- 
thors of the Flora of North America, having only an imper- 
fect fruiting specimen of their 7. filipes, and not sufficiently 
remarking the discrepancies between the 7T. clavatum (Hook. 
Fl. Bor. Am), and the figure and description of De Can- 
dolle's plant, as regards thelength of the styles, assumed 
the former to be the true T. clavatum, and described their 
Own plant asa new species. But our specimens accord so 
Perfectly with the figure of Delessert, (except in the 
greater, but variable length of the stipes to the fruit, and sm 
the veining of the carpels, which, doubtless by an oversight 
of the artist, is omitted in the figure), as to leave no doubt 
of their identity. The sub-arctic plant may be appropriately 
called T. Richardsoni, in honour of its discoverer; and 
some few particulars should be added to De Candolle's cha- 
. Tacter of our own plant.* "The flowers of this species are 
* Thalictrum clavatum, D.C.) : glaberrimum, floribus hermaphroditis 
