Botanical Excursioyi to the Mountains of North Carolina. 31 



North Carolina, as has generally been supposed.* It is a sharp 

 and craggy ridge: lying within Ashe and Burke Counties, very 

 near the northeast corner of Yancey, and cutting across the 

 chain to which it belongs (the Blue Ridge) nearly at right an- 

 gles. It is entirely covered with trees, except where the rocks 

 are absolutely perpendicular ; and towards the summit, the Bal- 

 sam Fir of these mountains, Ahies halsamifera, partly, of Mi- 

 chaux's Flora (but not of the younger Michaux's Sylva) the A. 

 Fraseri, Pursh, prevails, accompanied by the Abies nigra or 

 Black Spruce. The earth, rocks, and prostrate decaying trunks, 

 in the shade of these trees, are carpeted with Mosses and Lich- 

 ens ; and the whole presents the most perfect resemblance to the 

 dark and sombre forests of the northern parts of New York and 

 Vermont, except that the trees are here much smaller. The re- 

 semblance extends to the whole vegetation ; and a list of the 

 shrubs and herbaceous plants of this mountain would be found 

 to include a large portion of the common plants of the extreme 

 Northern States and Canada.f Indeed the vegetation is essen- 

 tially Canadian, with a considerable number of peculiar species 

 intermixed. Under the guidance of Mr. Levi Moody, we fol- 

 lowed the Watauga, here a mere creek, for four or five miles 

 along the base of the Grandfather, until we reached a ridge 

 which promised a comparatively easy ascent. In the rich soil 

 of this ridge, at an elevation of about four hundred feet above 

 the Watauga, we found one of the plants which of all others 

 we were desirous of obtaining, viz. Carex Frasei^iana. Mr. 

 Curtis had made diligent but ineffectual search for this most sin- 

 gular and rarest of Carices, along the " Catawba near Morgan- 

 ton," and "near Table Mountain," where Fraser is said to have 



* According to Prof. Mitchell's barometrical measurements, the Grandfather 

 attains the altitude of five thousand five hundred and fifty six feet above the sea ; 

 the Roan, six thousand and thirty eight feet; and the highest peak of the Black 

 Mountain, six thousand four hundred and seventy six feet, which exceeds Mount 

 Washington in New Hampshire (hitherto accounted the highest mountain in the 

 United States,) by more than two hundred feet. — See Jlmorican Journal of Science 

 and Jlrts, Vol. xxxv, p. 377. 



t Among the northern species which we had not previously observed in this 

 region, we may mention Carex flexuosa, C. plantaginea, C. scabrata, C. iniumes- 

 cens, Oxaiis Jlcctosella, Strcptopus roseus, Viburnum lantanoides, and Platanthera 

 orhlculata in the finest condition, and in greater profusion than we ever before met 

 with this, the most striking of North American Orchidaceae. 



