134 NORTH CAROLINA 



berry, and galax. With them, but deserv- 

 ing a sentence by themselves, were the 

 exquisite vernal iris and the scarlet painted 

 cup, otherwise known as the Indian's paint- 

 brush and prairie fire, splendid for color, and 

 in these parts, to my astonishment, a fre- 

 quenter of the forest. I should have looked 

 for it only in grassy meadows. Here and 

 there grew close patches of the pretty, alpine- 

 looking sand myrtle (JLeiophyllum buxifo- 

 lium), thickly covered with small white 

 flowers, a plant which I had seen for the 

 first time the day before on the summit of 

 Whiteside. Mountain heather I called it, 

 finding no English name in Chapman's 

 Flora. Stunted laurel bushes in small bud 

 were scattered over the summit. A little 

 later they would make the place a flower gar- 

 den. A single rose-acacia tree had already 

 done its best in that direction, with a full 

 crop of gorgeous rose-purple clusters. The 

 winds had twisted it and kept it down, but 

 could not hinder its fruitfulness. 



These things, and others like them, I 

 noticed between times. For the most part, 

 my eyes were upon the grand panorama, a 

 wilderness of hazy, forest-covered mountains, 



