Rus a Se ee ee Le Se | of Ni h Car olin 12 
stopped to dine, and were therefore disappointed in our hope of 
collecting Sedum telephioides, S. pulchellum, Paronychia dicho- 
toma, 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 { Robi- 
nia Pseudacacia) decidedly pe censtane + probably extends to 
the southern confines of Pi y d from this point south 
it is every where abundant, but we did not meet with it east of 
the Blue Ridge.. From Winchester, the shire-town 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 Shenan- 
doah, 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 
sand New River, as the upper part of the Great Kenhawa is term- 
ed, from which point it loses its character in some degree, cated 
nenbeniiel seamnrietts by the western waters. The same 
autenda east through Maryland and Pennsylva- 
sang: and even into ae eats of New wack; preerring throughout 
e geolog lar and - Our first oe 
ag eae. eee Mee 2 Dp mS L me a 3 + enidik ven ha aie as Pee 
: drive ‘miles: from Winchester. ‘From the moment we entered the 
valley, we observed quantities of Echium vulgare, 
that we were no longer sacnieea at the doubt expressed by Pursh 
‘whether it were really an introduced plant. This “vile foreign 
weed,” as Dr. Darlington, ag lly speaking, terms this showy 
plants is occasionally seen along the “road-side in the Northern 
- States; but here, for the distance of more than a hundred miles, 
it has taken complete possession, even of many cultivated fields, 
especially. where the limestone approaches the surface, presenting 
‘a broad expanse of brilliant blue. It is surprising that the farm- 
_ers should allow a biennial like this so completely to overrun the 
Another plant much more extensively introduced here 
en in deer north, (where it scarcely deserves the name of a nat- 
Ly is Bupleurum rotundifolium, which ante 
- we met with abundantly. The Marubiun 
