20 Botanical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina. 



Ulnius alata, or often to all the elms indifferently. The bit- 

 ter and somewhat aromatic infusion of the green cones of both 

 these Magnolias in whiskey or apple-brandy, is very extensively 

 employed as a preventive against intermittent fevers ; an use 

 which, as the younger Michaux remarks, would doubtless be 

 much less frequent, if, with the same medical properties, the 

 aqueous infusion were substituted. 



Nearly at the top of this mountain we overtook our awkward 

 driver, awaiting our arrival in perfect helplessness, having con- 

 trived to break his carriage upon a heap of stones, and to over- 

 throw his horse into the boughs of a prostrate tree. So much 

 time was occupied in extricating the poor animal, and in tempo- 

 rary repairs to the waggon, that we had barely time to descend 

 the mountain on the opposite side, and to seek lodgings for the 

 night in the secluded valley of the South Fork of the Holston. 

 In moist shady places along the descent of this mountain, and in 

 similar situations throughout the .mountains of North Carolina, we 

 found plenty of the northern Listera convallaiioides, in fine state, 

 entirely similar to the plant from Vermont, Canada, Newfound- 

 land, and the Northwest Coast, and agreeing completely with the 

 figure of Swartz, (in Weber 6^" Mohr, Beitr'dge zur Naturkunde 

 1. (lS05)j3. 2. t. 1,) and the recent one oi Hook. Flora Boreali- 

 Americana. It is difficult to conceive why Willdenow should 

 cite the Ophrys cordata of Michaux under the Epipactis convaU 

 larioides of Swartz, while there is so little accordance in their 

 characters ; but this has not prevented Pursh from combining 

 the specific phrase of the two authors, into one, while he assigns 

 a locality for the plant, (New Jersey,) where the Listera conval- 

 larioides certainly does not grow. The Rev, Mr. Curtis, I be- 

 lieve, first detected the plant in these mountains. 



The next day, (July 1,) we crossed the Iron Moimtains (the 

 great chain which divides the states of North Carolina and Ten- 

 nessee, and which here forms the northwestern boundary of 

 Grayson County, Virginia,) by Fox-Creek Gap, and traversing 

 the numerous tributaries of the North Fork of New River, which 

 abundantly water this sequestered region, we slept a few miles 

 beyond the boundary of North Carolina, after a journey of nearly 

 thirty miles. It must not be imagined that we found hotels or 

 taverns for our accommodation ; as, except at Ashe Court House, 

 we saw no house of public entertainment from the time we left 



