230 BOTANICAL EXCURSION 
In wet places, on the very borders of North Carolina, but 
still within Virginia, we first met with Trautvetteria palmata, 
and Diphylleia cymosa, the former in full flower, the latter in 
fruit. Trautvetteria, which I doubt not is more nearly allied 
to Thalictrum than to Cimicifuga or Actea, was collected by 
Pursh in Virginia, both on the Salt-Pond Mountain and the 
Peaks of Otter. The Diphylicia is confined to springy places: 
and the margin of shaded mountain-brooks, in the rich an 
deep alluvial soil so general throughout these mountains, 
never occurring, perhaps, at a lower elevation than three 
thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is a more 
striking plant than we had supposed, its cauline leaves 
(generally two, but sometimes three in number), being often two 
feet in diameter, and the radical ones, which are orbicular and 
centrally peltate, as in Podophyllum, frequently still larger, 50 
that it is not easy (at this season) to obtain manageable 
specimens, The branches of the cyme are usually reddish } 
or purple, and the gibbous, deep blue, and glaucous berries, - 
are almost dry when ripe. The latter often contain as many 
as four perfect seeds; and it is proper to remark that the — 
embryo is not very minute, as described in the Flora of | 
North America; but in ripe seeds recently examined is 
one-third the length of the albumen, as stated by Decaisne, 
or even longer. The cotyledons are elliptical, flattish, and 
nearly the length of the thick, slightly club-shaped radicle. ` 
The whole embryo is somewhat flattened, so that when the | 
seed is longitudinally divided in one direction, the embryo: 
examined in situ, appears to be very slender, and ro agree ` 
with De Candolle's description. The albumen is horny when ` 
dry, and has a bitter taste. Along the road-side we shortly 
afterwards collected the equivocal Vaccinium erythrocarpum 
Michaux, or Oxycoccus erectus of Pursh, a low, erect, dichoto- - 
mously branched shrub, with the habit, foliage, and fruit of 
Vaccinium, but the flowers of Oxycoccus. lt here occurred at ` 
a lower elevation than usual, scarcely more than three thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea, and in a dwarfish state 1 
(about a foot high) ; subsequently we only met with it on the ` 
Ee 
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