NOTES OF A BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO THE 

 MOUNTAINS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 1 



The peculiar interest you 2 have long taken in North Amer- 

 ican botany, and your most important labors in its eluci- 

 dation, indicate the propriety of addressing to yourself the 

 following remarks, relating, for the most part, to the hasty 

 collections made by Mr. John Carey, Mr. James Constable, 

 and myself, in a recent excursion to the higher mountains of 

 North Carolina. Before entering upon our own itinerary, it 

 may be well to notice very briefly the travels of those who 

 have preceded us in these comparatively unfrequented re- 

 gions. The history of the botany of the Alleghany Moun- 

 tains would be at once interesting and on many accounts 

 useful to the cultivators of our science in this country ; but 

 with my present inadequate means, I can only offer a slight 

 contribution towards that object. 



So far as I can ascertain, the younger (William) Bartram 

 was the first botanist who visited the southern portion of the 

 Alleghany Mountains. Under the auspices of Dr. Fother- 

 gill, to whom his collections were principally sent, and with 

 whom his then surviving father had previously corresponded, 

 Mr. Bartram left Philadelphia in 1773, and after traveling 

 in Florida and the lower part of Georgia for three years, he 

 made a transient visit to the Cherokee country, in the spring 

 of 1776. In this journey he ascended the Seneca or Keowee 

 River, one of the principal sources of the Savannah, and 

 crossing the mountains which divide its waters from those of 

 the Tennessee, continued his travels along the course of the 

 latter to the borders of the present State of Tennessee. 

 Finding that his researches could not safely be extended in 



1 American Journal of Science and Arts, xlii. 1. (1842.) 



2 Sir W. J. Hooker. 



