Botanical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina. 31. 
North Carolina, as has generally been supposed.* It is a sharp 
and craggy ridge, lying within Ashe and Burke Counties, very 
near the northeast corner of Yancey, and cutting across the 
chain to which it belongs (the Blwe Ridge) nearly at right an- 
les. It is entirely covered with trees, except where the rocks 
are absolutely perpendicular; and towards the summit, the Bal- 
| sam Fir of these mountains, Abies balsamifera, partly, of Mi- 
; chaux’s Flora (but not of the younger Michaux’s Sylva) the A. 
Fraseri, Pursh, prevails, accompanied by the Abies nigra or 
Black Spruce. ‘The earth, rocks, and prostrate decaying trunks, 
in the shade of these trees, are carpeted with Mosses and Lich- 
_ ens; and the whole presents the most perfect resemblance to the 
dark and sombre forests of the northern parts of New York and 
‘Vermont, except that the trees are here much smaller. The re- 
nblance extends to the whole vegetation; and a list of the 
shrubs and herbaceous plants of this mountain would be found 
to include a large portion of the common plants of the extreme 
Northern States and Canada.t Indeed the vegetation is essen- 
tially Canadian, with a considerable number of peculiar species 
intermixed. Under the guidance of Mr. Levi Moody, we fol- 
lowed the Watauga, here a mere creek, for four or five miles 
along the base of the Grandfather, until we reached a ridge 
which promised a comparatively easy ascent. In the rich soil 
of this ridge, at an elevation of about four hundred feet above 
the Watauga, we found one of the plants which of all others 
we were desirous of obtaining, viz. Carer Fraseriana. Mr. 
Curtis had made diligent but ineffectual search for this most sin- 
gular and rarest of Carices, along the ‘Catawba near Morgan- 
ton,” and “near Table Mountain,” where Fraser is said to have 
‘ 
t 
; 
ee 
* According to Prof. Mitchell’s barometrical measurements, the Grandfather 
attains the altitude of five thousand. five hundred and fifty six feet above the sea ; 
the Roan, six thousand and thirty eight feet; and the highest peak of the Black 
Mountain, six thousand four hundred and seventy six feet, which exceeds Mount 
Washington in New Hampshire (hitherto accounted the highest mountain in the 
United States,) by more than two hundred feet.—See American Journal of Science 
and Arts, Vol. xxxv, p. 377. 
t Among the northern species which we had not previously observed im this 
cens, Oxalis sl ie Streptopus roseus, Viburnum lantunoides, and Pi rel 
i nest condition, and in greater profusion than we args: teh, met 
with this, the most shi of North American Orehidacew. 
* 
