138 GYMNOLOMIA PORTERI. STONE-MOUNTAIN STAR. 



which Is slenderly campanulate in the latter genus, while In Gyifi- 

 nolomia, as illustrated by our plate (see Fig. 2), It Is short and 

 contracted towards the apex, so that its widest part is at the base. 

 No plant of the genus Gymnolomia was known to exist in 

 our country till 1846, when our species w^as discovered by 

 Rev. Thomas C. Porter, the professor of botany at Lafayette 

 College, Easton, Pa. So late a discovery of an entirely new 

 genus, in a part of the country so well explored as the old 

 Atlantic States are supposed to be, is quite remarkable, and we 

 may, therefore, be pardoned for giving a detailed account of the 

 event from a private letter from Dr. Porter himself, addressed 

 to the writer of this In 1877. "On the 19th of July, 1846," 

 writes Dr. Porter, " I joined a party consisting of Dr. Joseph 

 Le Conte (now of the University of California), and a few ladles, 

 for a six weeks' summer tour through Northeastern Georgia, 

 at Graves' Hotel, at the foot of Stone Mountain, De Kalb 

 County, twelve miles east of Atlanta. This celebrated moun- 

 tain is a huge, isolated mass of granite, fifteen hundred feet 

 hio-h, on the north side perpendicular for one thousand feet, 

 very steep on the south and east sides, and sloping on the west, 

 where It is w^ooded half-way up. The bare summit was crowned 

 with a square w^ooden tower (burned down during the war), 

 over one hundred and sixty feet high. Its keeper, strange to 

 say, bore the name of A. Cloud. As the top of the tower com- 

 manded a view of vast extent, our party started out at two 

 o'clock the next morning in order to reach that elevated posi- 

 tion, in time to see the sun rise. When day dawned, I noticed 

 on the upper part of the mountain and around the tower. In flat 

 places and depressions of the rock, where a scanty soil had 

 accumulated, clumps of stunted bushes, on the borders of which 

 grew, In considerable abundance, a helianthoid plant, about two 

 feet high, with gay, yellow flowers. It was collected and sent 

 to Dr. Gray, who published it in his ' Plantar Fendleriana;,' 

 under the name of Rtcdbeckia? Porteri. When gathered, I 

 observed that the fresh roots exhaled a strong, peculiar odor." 



