A "Thousand-Mile JValk 



of Burns's poems, Milton's Paradise Lost, and 

 a small New Testament, he waited for me, 

 handed back my bag, and returned down the 

 hill, saying that he had forgotten something. 



I found splendid growths of shining-leaved 

 Ericacece [heathworts] for which the Alleghany 

 Mountains are noted. Also ferns of which Os- 

 munda cinnamomea [Cinnamon Fern] is the 

 largest and perhaps the most abundant. Os- 

 munda regalis [Flowering Fern] is also common 

 here, but not large. In Wood's ^ and Gray's 

 Botany Osmunda cinnamomea is said to be a 

 much larger fern than Osmunda claytoniana. 

 This I found to be true in Tennessee and 

 southward, but in Indiana, part of Illinois, and 

 Wisconsin the opposite is true. Found here 

 the beautiful, sensitive Schrankia, or sensitive 

 brier. It is a long, prickly, leguminous vine, 

 with dense heads of small, yellow fragrant 

 flowers. 



^ Alphonso Wood, Class-bhok of Botany^ with a Flora of 

 the United States and Canada. The copy of this work, carried 

 by Mr. Muir on his wanderings, is still extant. The edition 

 is that of 1862. 



[ 18] 



