BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 35 



Intending to reach this remote region by the way of the 

 Valley of Virginia, we left New York on the evening of the 

 22d of June, and traveling by railroad, reached Winchester, 

 a distance of three hundred miles, beforg sunset of the follow- 

 ing day. At Harper's Ferry, where the Potomac, joined by 

 the Shenandoah, forces its way through the Blue Ridge, in the 

 midst of some of the most picturesque scenery in the United 

 States, we merely stopped to dine, and were therefore disap- 

 pointed in our hope of collecting Sedum tehphoides, S. pul- 

 chellum, Paronychia dichotoma, and Draba ramosissima, all 

 of which grow here upon the rocks. We observed the first 

 in passing, but it was not yet in flower. On the rocky banks 

 of the Potomac below Harper's Ferry, we saw for the first 

 time the common Locust-tree (JRobinia Pseudacacia) de- 

 cidedly indigenous. It probably extends to the southern con- 

 fines of Pennsylvania ; and from this point south it is every- 

 where abundant, but we did not meet with it east of the Blue 

 Ridge. From Winchester, the shiretown of Frederick County, 

 we proceeded by stage-coach directly up the Valley of Virginia, 

 as that portion of the State is called which lies between the 

 unbroken Blue Ridge and the most easterly ranges of the 

 Alleghanies. From the Potomac to the sources of the She- 

 nandoah it is, strictly speaking, a valley, from twenty to thirty 

 miles in width, with a strong, chiefly limestone soil of great 

 fertility. It is scarcely interrupted, indeed, up to where the 

 Roanoke rises ; but a branch of the Alleghanies intervenes 

 between the latter and New River, as the upper part of the 

 Great Kenawha is termed, from which point it loses its char- 

 acter in some degree, and is exclusively traversed by the 

 western waters. The same valley extends to the north and 

 east through Maryland and Pennsylvania, and even into the 

 State of New York, preserving throughout the same geological 

 character and fertile soil. Our first day's ride was to Harri- 

 sonburg, in Rockingham County, a distance of sixty-nine miles 

 fromWinchester. From the moment we entered the valley, we 

 observed such immense quantities of Echium vulgare, that we 

 were no longer surprised at the doubt expressed by Pursh 

 whether it was really an introduced plant. This " vile foreign 



