BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 63 



Orchard on Doe River, in Tennessee, and up Little Doe 

 River to Squire Hampton's, where we took a guide and as- 

 cended the Roan. While ascending the Little Doe River, 

 about three miles from the junction with the large stream of 

 that name, at one of the numerous places where the road 

 crosses this rivulet, we again met with Carex Fraseriana. 

 The plant did not appear to be so abundant in this Tennessee 

 locality as at the Grandfather, but it is doubtless plentiful on 

 the mountain side just above. We ascended the north side 

 of the Roan, through the heavy timbered woods and rank 

 herbage with which it is covered ; but found nothing new to 

 us excepting Streptopus lanuginosus, in fruit, and among the 

 grove of Rhododendron maximum towards the summit, we 

 also collected Diphyscium foliosum, a moss which we had 

 not before seen in a living state. In more open moist places 

 near the summit, we found the Hedyotis {Houstonia) serpyl- 

 lifolia, still beautifully in flower, and the Geum yeniculatum, 

 which we have already noticed. It was just sunset when we 

 reached the bald and grassy summit of this noble mountain, 

 and after enjoying for a moment the magnificent view it af- 

 fords, had barely time to prepare our encampment between 

 two dense clumps of Rhododendron Catawbiense, to collect 

 fuel, and make ready our supper. The night was so fine 

 that our slight shelter of Balsam boughs proved amply suf- 

 ficient ; the thermometer, at this elevation of about six thou- 

 sand feet above the level of the sea, being 64° Fahr. at mid- 

 night, and 60° at sunrise. The temperature of a spring just 

 under the brow of the mountain below our encampment we 

 found to be 47° Fahr. The Roan is well characterized by 

 Professor Mitchell as the easiest of access and the most beau- 

 tiful of all the high mountains of that region. " With the 

 exception of a body of (granitic) rocks, looking like the ruins 

 of an old castle, near its southwestern extremity, the top of 

 the Roan may be described as a vast meadow (about nine 

 miles in length, with some interruptions, and with a maximum 

 elevation of six thousand and thirty-eight feet), without a 

 tree to obstruct the prospect ; where a person may gallop his 

 horse for a mile or two, with Carolina at his feet on one side, 



