418 LEGUMINOUS PLANTS. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



SHORT MENTION OF LEGUMINOUS PLANTS. 



The botanical wealth of this State, so far as we can presently form 

 an opinion, is likely to be greater than that of the Atlantic States, 

 notwithstanding the absence of the littoral flora. A. thorough search 

 over the northwestern portions of the State, along the upper course 

 of the Holston and French Broad rivers, would almost necessarily bring 

 forth the whole array of forms peculiar to Western Virginia, Penn- 

 sylvania and Eastern Kentucky, and the high summits of the Unaka 

 Mountains, extending over 200 miles in length, are crowned with those 

 alpine beauties, memorials of the glacial period whose aspect and pos- 

 session is so enchanting to the. botanist. 



The depressed limestone area of Middle Tennessee is a well defined 

 region in strikingly peculiar effect of landscape, from the conformation 

 of surface and character of vegetation. Between undulating productive 

 lands stretch, rugged cliffs, not cultivable glades, where the cavern- 

 ous and much fissured rocks lies either bare, or meagerly soil -covered. 

 The cedar, with its wide-spreading roots and time-demanding growth, is 

 here at home, and largely in excess of all other timber growth. Pines 

 are not found in those regions known as the cedar barrens, which har- 

 bor a number of very rare plants 



The western part of the State again, is botanically nearly an unex- 

 plored region. As it differs geologically and geographically from the 

 rest of the State, eo may also a difference in its flora be looked for. 

 Foremost exposed to the prevailing Avestern currents of the winds, 

 fleeting seeds and germs, wafted over the great plains, arrive there in 

 greatest abundance, and, should even conditions of soil and climate not 

 favor their permanent establishment, they will readily be again replen- 

 ished. The mighty Mississippi annually overflowing hundreds of 

 square miles, deposits innumerable seeds, whose germs had been fertil- 

 ized in the distant regions of the far West. 



The Leguminosse are a natural order of the dicotyledonous plants. 

 Herbs, shrubs or trees, with papilionaceous, or sometimes regular 

 flowers 10 (rarely 5, and sometimes many) monadelphous, diadelphous, 

 or rarely distinct stamens, and a single, simple, free pistil becoming a 



