18 Tennessee Flora. 



slender. A pleasantly odorous fern (Diclsonia punctilohnla) and 

 Aspidium spinulosum cover moist depressions of the j^ound. 



SMOKY MOUNTAINS. 



A type of flora somewhat different from this from the admixture 

 of truly Alpine or high Northern plant forms crowns the still loftier 

 summits of the Smoky Mountains and the Eoane Mountain. The 

 mountain defiles and coves on Doe Eiver and Watauga Kiver are 

 traversed by a narrow-gauge railroad, which presently terminates 

 at the Cranberry Iron Works, and a stage road leads up to Cloud- 

 land, a mountain resort on the summit of Roane Mountain, at an 

 altitude of 6,600 feet. Yellow and white pine, and also the table- 

 mountain pine (Pinus pungent) predominate on the mountain 

 -sides ; but white oak, chestnut, cherry, sugar maple, and also walnut 

 -and hickories, strong and densely grown, hold the lower grounds 

 and river banks. In these moist and shady gorges abounds the 

 Dicentra eximia, a beautiful plant-. It is a variety of the bleeding 

 heart, a "vrell-known garden ornament. The AdJumia cirrhosa, or 

 •climbing fumitory, a very graceful plant, also frequently cultivated 

 in gardens, yet common in Northern New York and the Western 

 ^■States, accompanies the former. A peculiar and very rare shrub, 

 not known elsewhere, the Buckleya distichophylla, and the oilnut 

 ■{Pyrularia oleifera), the beaked hazelnut {Corylus rostrata), the 

 scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia), and other shrubs which are also 

 .common in the Ocoee region form the undergrowth. The smooth- 

 leaved Dutchman's pipe {Aristolochia Sipho), the climbing bitter- 

 sweet (Celastrus scandens) , two species of Lonicera, and the bush 

 honeysuckle {Diervilla sessilifolia) are lovely and odd-shaped 

 climbers or bushes. Magnolia Fraseri abounds here. It is beyond 

 ihe scope of this sketch to enumerate the species for which the high 

 summits are famous among botanists. The discovery of the sand 

 myrtle {Leiophyllum huxifolium) , a native of the sandy pine bar- 

 rens of New Jersey, on the summit of Roane Mountain, is a curious 

 incident in plant geography. Rhododendroti Catawhiense, several 

 .Saxifragas and Solidago glommerta, monticola, spithamea, the 

 DiphyUeia cyinosa, Chelone> Lyoni, Cardamine Clematitis, Paro- 

 nychia argyrocoma, Sedum Rhodiola, Geiwi radiatum, Geum ge- 

 niculatum, Boykinia aconitifolia may serve as examples of rare 

 -plants. 



Another range of mountain flora we find in the Cumberland 



