1889.] BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 253 



Of course, a zealous and persistent botanist will surmount 

 all these difficulties in one manner or another, but it will be 

 seen from my account that it is no easy task to collect and 

 preserve the members of the Paraguayan flora. Begonias, 

 which abound here, and other succulent plants, are exceed- 

 ingly difficult of management. Some plants, like the Cala- 

 mus, can not be dried in any decent shape, and others, like 

 the Victoria regia and several of the Cacti, can not be pre- 

 served at all. They will mould or rot in despite of even 

 expedient. Many specimens must be preserved, if at all, in 

 fragments, and pieced together upon the mounting paper. 



Notwithstanding all this, I have managed to get together 

 about 750 species and some 8,000 specimens, which I trust 

 will be in a sufficiently good condition when they get home to 

 be identified and to make a valuable addition to the herbaria 

 •of the United States. 



Asuncion, Pai-agnay . 



The grasses of Roane Mountain. 



BY F. LAMSON SCRIBXER. 1 



Roane Mountain, lying on the border line between Ten- 

 nessee and North Carolina, has been made famous as the 

 botanizing ground of some of our best botanists, including 

 even Dr. Gray, who first visited it in 1841, and its flora pos- 

 sesses a peculiar as well as a historical interest. In the old 

 register of the hotel are recorded the finds of the several 

 botanists or botanical parties who have visited the locality. 

 The first of these was made in 1878 by Dr. Geo. Vasey, who. 

 under the head of " Grasses of Roane Mountain/' enumer- 

 ates the four or five species observed by him. 



As the guest of Mr. C. M. McClung, a prominent busi- 

 ness man of Knoxville, Tennessee, and an enthusiastic stu- 

 dent of North American plants, I spent a few of the last days 

 of July of the present season upon the mountain, and im- 

 proved the occasion by investigating the grasses of the local- 

 ity. As the result of three days' rather diligent search, we 

 together found on or near the mountain summit (all at an ele- 

 vation of over 6,000 ft. above sea level) twenty-five species, of 

 which the following is a list : 2 _^_____ 



1 Read before Section F, at the Toronto meeting of the A. A. A. S. 1889. 

 S*l I 1 have ^ready, in a paper read before the Society for the Promotion of Agncnltural 

 55S? Toronto meeting, considered the grasses of this region from an agricultural 



