BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 41 



fevers ; a use which, as the younger Michaux remarks, would 

 doubtless be much less frequent, if, with the same medical 

 properties, the aqueous infusion were substituted. 



Nearly at the top of this mountain we overtook our awk- 

 ward driver, awaiting our arrival in perfect helplessness, hav- 

 ing contrived to break his carriage upon a heap of stones, and 

 to overthrow his horse into the boughs of a prostrate tree. 

 So much time was occupied in extricating the poor animal 

 and in temporary repairs to the wagon, that we had barely 

 time to descend the mountain on the opposite side, and to 

 seek lodgings for the night in the secluded valley of the South 

 Fork of the Holston. In moist, shady places along the de- 

 scent of this mountain, and in similar situations throughout 

 the mountains of North Carolina, we found plenty of the 

 northern Listera convallarioides, in fine state, entirely simi- 

 lar to the plant from Vermont, Canada, Newfoundland, and 

 the Northwest Coast, and agreeing completely with the figure 

 of Swartz (in Weber & Mohr, " Beitrage zur Naturkunde," 

 I., 1805, p. 2, t. I.), and the recent one of Hooker's " Flora 

 Boreali Americana." It is difficult to conceive why Willde- 

 now should cite the Ophrys cordata of Michaux under the 

 Epipactis convallarioides of Swartz, while there is so little 

 accordance in their characters ; but this has not prevented 

 Pursh from combining the specific phrase of the two authors 

 into one, while he assigns a locality for the plant (New Jer- 

 sey), where the Listera convallarioides certainly does not 

 grow. The Rev. Mr. Curtis, I believe, first detected the 

 plant in these mountains. 



The next day (July 1) we crossed the Iron Mountains 

 (the great chain which divides the States of North Carolina 

 and Tennessee, and which here forms the northwestern boun- 

 dary of Grayson County, Virginia) by Fox-Creek Gap, and 

 traversing the numerous tributaries of the North Fork of the 

 New River, which abundantly water this sequestered region, 

 we slept a few miles beyond the boundary of North Carolina, 

 after a journey of nearly thirty miles. It must not be imag- 

 ined that we found hotels or taverns for our accommodation ; 

 as, except at Ashe Court House, we saw no house of public 



