BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 41 
fevers; a 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, hav- 
ing contrived to break bis carriage upon a heap of stones, and 
to overthrow his horse into the boughs of a prostrate tree. 
So much time was occupied in extricating the poor animal 
and in temporary repairs to the wagon, 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 de- 
scent of this mountain, and in similar situations throughout 
the mountains of North Carolina, we found plenty of the 
northern Listera convallarioides, in fine state, entirely simi- 
lar to the plant from Vermont, Canada, Newfoundland, and 
the Northwest Coast, and agreeing completely with the figure 
of Swartz (in Weber & Mohr, “ Beitrage zur Naturkunde,” 
I., 1805, p. 2, t. I.), and the recent-one of Hooker’s “ Flora 
Boreali-Americana.” It is difficult to conceive why Willde- 
now should cite the Ophrys cordata of Michaux under the 
Epipactis convallarioides of Swartz, while there is so little 
accordance in their characters; but this has not prevented 
Pursh from combining the specific phrase of the two authors 
into one, while he assigns a locality for the plant (New Jer- 
sey), where the Listera convallarioides certainly does not 
grow. The Rev. Mr. Curtis, I believe, first detected the 
plant in these mountains. 
The next day (July 1) we crossed the Iron Mountains 
(the great chain which divides the States of North Carolina 
and Tennessee, and which here forms the northwestern boun- 
dary of Grayson County, Virginia) by Fox-Creek Gap, and 
traversing the numerous tributaries of the North Fork of the 
New River, which abundantly water this sequestered region, 
we slept a few miles beyond the boundary of North Carolina, 
after a journey of nearly thirty miles. It must not be imag- 
ined that we found hotels or taverns for our accommodation ; 
as, except at Ashe Court House, we saw no house of public 
