30 Botanical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina. 



not hesitate to consider it a distinct species. The subjoined di- 

 agnostic character will doubtless suffice for its discrimination.* 



On the 7th of July, we started for the high mountains farther 

 south, having hired a cumbrous and unsightly, but convenient 

 tilted waggon, with a pair of horses and a driver, (who rode one 

 of the horses, according to the usual custom of this region,) for 

 the conveyance of our luggage, and which afforded us, at inter- 

 vals, the luxury of reposing on straw at the bottom, while we 

 were dragged along the rate of two or three miles per hour. 



Our first day's journey, of about twenty four miles, was some- 

 what tedious, as we found no new plants of any interest. We 

 saw, however, a variety of Lonicera parviflora ? with larger 

 leaves and flowers than ordinary, the latter dull purplish ; prob- 

 ably the Caprifolium bracteosum,, vox. jiorihus violaceo-purpureis 

 of Michaux. The following morning we reached the Watauga 

 River (a tributary of the Holston) ; and leaving our driver to fol- 

 low up the banks of the stream to the termination of the road at 

 the foot of the Grandfather, we ascended an adjacent mountain, 

 called Hanging-rock^ and reached our quarters for the night by 

 a different route. The fine and close view of the rugged Grand- 

 father amply rewarded the toil of ascending this beetling cliff, 

 where we also obtained the Geum [Sieversia) radiatuni, 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 

 tendency would doubtless be fully developed by cultivation. 

 Around the base of these mountains we saw Blephilia nepetoi- 

 des, and another Labiate plant not yet in flower, which we took 

 for Pyciianthemum Tnontanum, 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 



* Cardamine rotundifolia (Michx.) : glaberrima decumbens, stolonibus re- 

 pentibus, radice fibrosa, foliis omnibus conformibus (radicalibus scepe trisectis, seg- 

 mentis lateralibus parvis,) petiolatis rotundalis plerumque subcordatis integriuscu- 

 lis vel repando sinuatis, siliquis parvis stylo subulatis, stigmate niinuto, semini- 

 bus ovalibus. — C. rotundifolia, Michx. fl. 2. p. 30; Hook. hot. misc. 3. t. 109. (statu 

 vernali: in exeraplis Carolinianis folia caulinia magis petiolata) ; Darlingt. fl. 

 Cest. cd. 2. p. 384. C. rotundifolia 7. Terr. Sf Gray, fl. JV. Amer. 1. p. 83. 



Hab. in rivulis fontibusque opaculis montium Carolinas, Virginise, Kentucky, et 

 in Pennsylvania. 



