BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH CAROLINA. 53 



the toil of ascending this beetling cliff, where we also ob- 

 tained the Geum (Sieversia) radiation, probably the most 

 showy species of the genus. The brilliant golden flowers 

 have a disposition to double, even in the wild state, in which 

 we often found as many as eight or nine petals. This ten- 

 dency would doubtless be fully developed by cultivation. 

 Around the base of these mountains we saw Blephilia nepe~ 

 toides, and another Labiate plant not yet in flower, which 

 we took for Pycncuiihemum montanum, Michx. 



The next day (July 9th) we ascended the Grandfather, the 

 highest as well as the most rugged and savage mountain we 

 had yet attempted ; although by no means the most elevated 

 in North Carolina, as has generally been supposed. 1 It is a 

 sharp and craggy ridge, lying within Ashe and Burke coun- 

 ties, very near the northeast corner of Yancey, and cutting 

 across the chain to which it belongs (the Blue Ridge) nearly 

 at right angles. It is entirely covered with trees except where 

 the rocks are absolutely perpendicular ; and towards the sum- 

 mit, the Balsam Fir of these mountains, Abies balsamifera, 

 partly, of Michaux's Flora (but not of the younger Mi- 

 chaux's Sylva), the A. Fraseri, Pursh, prevails, accom- 

 panied by the Abies nigra or Black Spruce. The earth, rocks, 

 and prostrate decaying trunks, in the shade of these trees, are 

 carpeted with mosses and lichens ; and the whole present the 

 most perfect resemblance to the dark and sombre forests of 

 the northern parts of New York and Vermont, except that the 

 trees are here much smaller. The resemblance extends to the 

 whole vegetation ; and a list of the shrubs and herbaceous 

 plants of this mountain would be found to include a large 

 portion of the common plants of the extreme northern States 

 and Canada. 2 Indeed the vegetation is essentially Canadian, 



1 According to Professor Mitchel's barometrical measurements, the 

 Grandfather attains the altitude of five thousand five hundred and fifty- 

 six feet above the level of the sea ; the Roan, six thousand and thirty- 

 eight feet ; and the highest peak of the Black Mountain, six thousand 

 four hundred and seventy-six feet, which exceeds Mount Washington in 

 New Hampshire (hitherto accounted the highest mountain in the United 

 States) by more than two hundred feet. 



2 Among the northern species which we had not previously observed 



