BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 31 
with the portion he had saved. This notice of the travels of 
Michaux on this continent will suffice to show with what un- 
tiring zeal and assiduity his laborious researches were prose- 
cuted ; it should, however, be remarked, that greater facilities 
were afforded him, in some important respects, than any sub- 
sequent botanist has enjoyed; the expenses of his journey 
having been entirely defrayed by the French government, 
under whose auspices and direction they were undertaken. 
The name of Fraser, so familiar in the annals of North 
American botany, ought, perhaps, to have preceded that of 
Michaux in our brief sketch; since the elder Mr. Fraser, who 
had visited Newfoundland previous to the year 1784, com- 
menced his researches in the southern States as early as 
1785 ; and Michaux, on his first expedition to the mountains 
in 1787, speaks as having traveled in his company for several 
days. We believe, however, that he did not explore the Alle- 
ghany Mountains until 1789. Under the patronage of the 
Russian government, he returned to this country in 1799, 
accompanied by his eldest son, and revisited the mountains, 
ascending the beautiful Roan, where, “on a spot which com- 
mands a view of five States, namely, Kentucky, Virginia, 
Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the eye rang- 
ing to a distance of seventy or eighty miles when the air is 
clear, it was Mr. Fraser’s good fortune to discover and collect 
living specimens of the new and splendid Ahododendron 
Catawbiense, from which so many beautiful hybrid varieties 
have since been obtained by skilful cultivators.”+ The father 
and son revisited the southern States in 1807; and the lat- 
ter, after the decease of the father in 1811, returned to this 
country, and continued his indefatigable researches until 
ASAT 
Many of the rarest plants of these mountains were made 
1 « Biographical Sketch of John Fraser, the Botanical Collector,” in 
Hooker’s “Companion to the Botanical Magazine,” vol. ii. p. 300: an 
article from which I have derived nearly all the information I possess re- 
specting the researches of the Frasers in this country, and to which the 
reader is referréd for more particular information. A full list of the 
North American plants introduced into England by the father and son, is 
appended to that account, 
