BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 31 



with the portion he had saved. This notice of the travels of 

 Miehaux on this continent will suffice to show with what un- 

 tiring zeal and assiduity his laborious researches were prose- 

 cuted ; it should, however, be remarked, that greater facilities 

 were afforded him, in some important respects, than any sub- 

 sequent botanist has enjoyed ; the expenses of his journey 

 having been entirely defrayed by the French government, 

 under whose auspices and direction they were undertaken. 



The name of Eraser, so familiar in the annals of North 

 American botany, ought, perhaps, to have preceded that of 

 Miehaux in our brief sketch ; since the elder Mr. Fraser, who 

 had visited Newfoundland previous to the year 1784, com- 

 menced his researches in the southern States as early as 

 1785 ; and Miehaux, on his first expedition to the mountains 

 in 1787, speaks as having traveled in his company for several 

 days. We believe, however, that he did not explore the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains until 1789. Under the patronage of the 

 Russian government, he returned to this country in 1799, 

 accompanied by his eldest son, and revisited the mountains, 

 ascending the beautiful Roan, where, "on a spot which com- 

 mands a view of five States, namely, Kentucky, Virginia, 

 Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the eye rang- 

 ing to a distance of seventy or eighty miles when the air is 

 clear, it was Mr. Fraser's good fortune to discover and collect 

 living specimens of the new and splendid Rhododendron 

 Catawbiense, from which so many beautiful hybrid varieties 

 have since been obtained by skilful cultivators." 1 The father 

 and son revisited the southern States in 1807 ; and the lat- 

 ter, after the decease of the father in 1811, returned to this 

 country, and continued his indefatigable researches until 

 1817. 



Many of the rarest plants of these mountains were made 



1 "Biographical Sketch of John Fraser, the Botanical Collector," in 

 Hooker's " Companion to the Botanical Magazine," vol. ii. p. 300 : an 

 article from which I have derived nearly all the information I possess re- 

 specting the researches of the Frasers in this country, and to which the 

 reader is referred for more particular information. A full list of the 

 North American plants introduced into England by the father and son, is 

 appended to that account. 



