Botanical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina, 23 
chaux’ discovered it on his earliest visit to the mountains, and 
where Mr. Curtis has recently observed it,) to the western ranges 
«4 ~*~ of the Alleghanies of Pennsylvania in lat. 40°, where it was 
_~ found by the younger Michaux.* It flowers early in the season, 
and the oleaginous fruit in the perenne we collected had = 
tained the size of a musket ball. 
- In wet places, on the very borders of North: Suntan. but. still 
within Virginia, we first met with 7'rautvetteria palmata and 
Diphylleia cymosa ; the former in full flower, the latter in’ fruit. 
Trautvetteria, which 1 doubt not is more nearly allied to Thalie« 
trum than to Cimicifuga or Acteea, was collected by Pursh in Vir= 
ginia, both on the Salt-Pond Mountain and the Peaks of Otter. 
The Diphylleia is confined to springy places, and the margin of 
_~ shaded mountain brooks, in the rich and deep alluvial soil which 
ees is so general throughout these mountains, never occurring, per- 
haps, at a lower elevation than three thousand feet above the 
level of the sea. It is a more striking plant than we had sup- 
posed ; the cauline leaves (generally two, but sometimes three in 
number, ) being often two feet in diameter, and the radical, which ~ 
are orbicular and-couteslly peltate as in Podophylium, fi 
still larger; so that it is not easy (at this season) eéabtain ‘man- 
ageable specimens. ‘The branches of the cyme are usually red= 
dish or purple, and the gibbons, deep blue and glaucous berries 
are almost-dry when’ geo The latter-often contain as manyas 
four: perfect seeds; and it is p 
not ‘very minute,’ as described i in the Flora of f North Americas 
but, in the ripe seeds recently examived, is one-third the lengthy 
of ate albumen, as stated by Decaisne, or even longer. The co- 
-are elliptical, flattish, and nearly the length of the thick, 
slightly club-shaped radicle. ‘The whole embryo is also some 
what flattened; so that when the seed is longitudinally divided 
in one dicts; the embryo, examined in place, appears to’ be 5 
-very slender, and to agree with DeCandolle’s description. The 
BE albumen is horny when dry, and has a bitter taste. Along the 
i road-side, we shortly afterwards collected the equivocal Vaccinium 
: } of Michaux, or Oxycoccus erectus of Pursh ; a low, 
‘3 erect, dichotomously branched shrub, with the habit, foliinié; and. 
: aeeee jractone: but the flowers of Ozycoccus. It one 00+ 
