42 ESS A YS. 



entertainment from the time we left the valley of Virginia 

 until we finally crossed the Blue Ridge and quitted the moun- 

 tain region. Yet we suffered little inconvenience on this ac- 

 count, as we were cordially received at the farm-houses along 

 the road, and entertained according to the means and ability 

 of the owners ; who seldom hesitated either to make a mod- 

 erate charge, or to accept a proper compensation for their 

 hospitality, which we therefore did not hesitate to solicit from 

 time to time. On the Iron Mountains we met with nearly 

 all the species we had collected during the previous day, and 

 with a single additional plant of much interest, namely, the 

 Boykinia aconitifolia, Nutt. We found it in the greatest 

 abundance and luxuriance on the southern side of the moun- 

 tain, near the summit, along the rocky margins of a small 

 brook, which for a short distance were completely covered 

 with the plant. It here attains the height of two feet or 

 more; the stems, rising from a thick rhizoma (and clothed 

 below, as well as the petioles, with deciduous rusty hairs), are 

 terminated by a panicle of small cymes, which at first are 

 crowded, but at length are loose, with the flowers mostly uni- 

 lateral. The rather large, pure white petals are deciduous 

 after flowering, not marcescent as in Saxifraga and Heuchera. 

 We did not again meet with this plant ; but Mr. Curtis col- 

 lected it several years ago near the head of Linville River, 

 and Mr. Buckley obtained it in the mountains of Alabama. 

 It also extends further north than our own locality ; for, 

 although not described in his Flora, Pursh collected it on 

 the Salt-Pond Mountain in Virginia. 1 I have little doubt 

 that the Saxifraga Richardsonii would be more correctly 

 transferred to Boykinia, as well as the 8. ranuncuUfoUa ; 

 and, since the /S y . data of Nuttall, in Torrey and Gray's 

 1 The specimen in Professor Barton's herbarium (in fruit) is ticketed 

 by Pursh : " Heuchera villosa, Michx. ? Salt-Pond Mountain, under the 

 naked knob, near a spring. This spring is the highest I have seen." I 

 know not the exact situation of this mountain from which Pursh obtained 

 many interesting plants. The Boykinia aconitifolia, I may remark, would 

 be a very desirable plant in cultivation, and might be expected to endure 

 the winter of New York and Philadelphia ; it would certainly flourish in 

 England % 



