BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 39 



pose. With considerable difficulty we at length procured a 

 carry-all (a light, covered wagon with springs, drawn by a 

 single horse), capable of conveying our luggage and a single 

 person besides the driver, a simple shoemaker who had never 

 before undertaken so formidable a journey, and who accord- 

 ingly proved entirely wanting in the skill and tact necessary 

 for conducting so frail a vehicle over such difficult mountain 

 tracks, for roads they can scarcely be called. We had first 

 to ascend the steep ridge interposed between the middle and 

 south Forks of the Holston, called Brushy Mountain, during 

 the ascent of which we commenced botanizing in earnest. 

 The first interesting plant we met with was Saxifraga erosa 

 of Pursh, but only with ripe fruit, and even with the seeds 

 for the most part fallen from the capsules. The same locality 

 also furnished us with specimens of the pretty Thalictrum 

 filipes, Torr. & Gray (to which the name of T. clavatum, 

 DC. must be restored), a plant which abounds along all the 

 cold and clear brooks throughout the mountains of North 

 Carolina ; where it could not well have escaped the notice of 

 Michaux, in whose herbarium De Candolle found the speci- 

 men (with no indication of its habitat) on which his T. cla- 

 vatum was established. The authors of the " Flora of North 

 America," having only an imperfect fruiting specimen of 

 their T. Jilipes, and not sufficiently remarking the discrep- 

 ancies between the T. clavatum, Hook. " Fl. Bor.-Am." and 

 the figure and description of De Candolle's plant, in regard 

 to the length of the styles, assumed the former to be the true 

 T. clavatum, and described their own plant as a new species. 

 But our specimens accord so perfectly with the figure of 

 Delessert (except in the greater but variable length of the 

 stipes to the fruit, and in the veining of the carpels, which, 

 doubtless by an oversight of the artist, is omitted in the fig- 

 ure) as to leave no doubt of their identity. The subarctic 

 plant may be appropriately called T. Richardsonii, in honor 

 of its discoverer. The flowers of this species are uniformly 

 perfect, as indeed they are figured by Delessert, although 

 De Candolle has otherwise described them. It is a slender, 

 delicate plant, from eight to twelve, or rarely exceeding eigh- 



