BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 63 
Orchard on Doe River, in Tennessee, and up Little Doe 
River to Squire Hampton’s, where we took a guide and as- 
cended the Roan. While ascending the Little Doe River, 
about three miles from the junction with the large stream of 
that name, at one of the numerous places where the road 
crosses this rivulet, we again met with Carex F'raseriana. 
The plant did not appear to be so abundant in this Tennessee 
locality as at the Grandfather, but it is doubtless plentiful on 
the mountain side just above. We ascended the north side 
of the Roan, through the heavy timbered woods and rank 
herbage with which it is covered ; but found nothing new to 
us excepting Streptopus lanuginosus, in fruit, and among the 
grove of Rhododendron maximum towards the summit, we 
also collected Diphyscium foliosum, a moss which we had 
not before seen in a living state. In more open moist places 
near the summit, we found the Hedyotis (Houstonia) serpyl- 
lifolia, still beautifully in flower, and the G'ewm geniculatum, 
which we have already noticed. It was just sunset when we 
reached the bald and grassy summit of this noble mountain, 
and after enjoying for a moment the magnificent view it af- 
fords, had barely time to prepare our encampment between 
two dense clumps of Rhododendron Catawbiense, to collect 
fuel, and make ready our supper. The night was so fine 
that our slight shelter of Balsam boughs proved amply suf- 
ficient ; the thermometer, at this elevation of about six thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea, being 64° Fahr. at mid- 
night, and 60° at sunrise. The temperature of a spring just 
under the brow of the mountain below our encampment we 
found to be 47° Fahr. The Roan is well, characterized by 
Professor Mitchell as the easiest of access and the most beau- 
tiful of all the high mountains of that region. ‘ With the 
exception of a body of (granitic) rocks, looking like the ruins 
of an old castle, near its southwestern extremity, the top of 
the Roan may be described as a vast meadow (about nine 
miles in length, with some interruptions, and with a maximum 
elevation of six thousand and thirty-eight feet), without a 
tree to obstruct the prospect ; where a person may gallop his 
horse for a mile or two, with Carolina at his feet on one side, 
