226 BOTANICAL EXCURSION 
by the prostrate or creeping Hedyotis serpyllifolia, Torr. et Gr. 
(Houstonia serpyllifolia, Michz.), which continues to flower 
sparingly throughout the summer. This pretty plant has 
quite the habit of Arenaria Balearica; and the root is cer- 
tainly perennial. We found it very abundant in similar situ- 
ations throughout this mountain region. Towards the sum- 
mit of this ridge we first noticed the Magnolia Fraseri, (M. 
auriculata Bartr.), which resembles the Umbrella-tree (Mag- 
nolia Umbrella), in the disposition of its leaves at the extre- 
mity of the branches. This, as well as M. acuminata (the 
only other species of Magnolia that we observed), is oC: 
casionally termed Cucumber-tree ; but the people of the coun- 
try almost uniformly called the former Wahoo, a name which, 
in the lower part of the Southern States, is applied to Ulmus 
alata, or often to all the Elms indifferently. The bitter and 
somewhat aromatic infusion of the green cones of both these 
Magnolias in whiskey or apple-brandy, is very extensively 
employed as a preventive against intermittent fevers; an 
use which, as the younger Michaux remarks, would doubtless 
be much less frequent, if, with the same medical properties, 
the aqueous infusion were substituted. 
Nearly at the top of this mountain we overtook our awk- 
ward driver awaiting our arrival in perfect helplessness; 
having contrived to break his carriage upon a heap of stones; 
and to overthrow his horse into the boughs of a prostrate 
tree. So much delay was caused in extricating the poor ani- 
mal, and in temporary repairs to the waggon, that we had 
barely time to descend the mountain on the opposite side, 
and to seek lodgings for the night in the secluded valley 
of the South Fork of the Holston. In moist shady places 
along the descent, and in similar situations throughout the 
mountains of North Carolina, we found plenty of the northern 
Listera convallarioides in a fine state, entirely similar to the 
plant from Vermont, Canada, Newfoundland, and the north- 
the other hand, if it should be thought inexpedient to divide agenus so well 
marked by habit as Asarum, any two sections of Heterotropa would form sub- 
genera of the former. 
