BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 385 
Intending to reach this remote region by the way of the 
Valley of Virginia, we left New York on the evening of the 
22d of June, and traveling by railroad, reached Winchester, 
a distance of three hundred miles, before sunset of the follow- 
ing day. At Harper’s Ferry, where the Potomac, joined by 
the Shenandoah, forces its way through the Blue Ridge, in the 
midst of some of the most picturesque scenery in the United 
States, we merely stopped to dine, and were therefore disap- 
pointed in our hope of collecting Sedum telephoides, S. pul- 
chellum, Paronychia dichotoma, and Draba ramosissima, all 
of which grow here upon the rocks. We observed the first 
in passing, but it was not yet in flower. On the rocky banks 
of the Potomac below Harper’s Ferry, we saw for the first 
time the common Locust-tree (/?obinia Pseudacacia) de- 
cidedly indigenous. It probably extends to the southern con- 
fines of Pennsylvania; and from this point south it is every- 
where abundant, but we did not meet with it east of the Blue 
Ridge. From Winchester, the shiretown of Frederick County, 
we proceeded by stage-coach directly up the Valley of Virginia, 
as that portion of the State is called which lies between the 
unbroken Blue Ridge and the most easterly ranges of the 
Alleghanies. From the Potomac to the sources of the She- 
nandoah it is, strictly speaking, a valley, from twenty to thirty 
miles in width, with a strong, chiefly limestone soil of great 
fertility. It is scarcely interrupted, indeed, up to where the 
Roanoke rises; but a branch of the Alleghanies intervenes 
between the latter and New River, as the upper part of the 
Great Kenawha is termed, from which point it loses its char- 
acter in some degree, and is exclusively traversed by the 
western waters. The same valley extends to the north and 
east through Maryland and Pennsylvania, and even into the 
State of New York, preserving throughout the same geological 
character and fertile soil. Our first day’s ride was to Harri- 
sonburg, in Rockingham County, a distance of sixty-nine miles 
from Winchester. From the moment we entered the valley, we 
observed such immense quantities of Hchiwm vulgare, that we 
were no longer surprised at the doubt expressed by Pursh 
whether it was really an introduced plant. This “ vile foreign 
