Botaiiical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina. 17 



(a light covered wagon with springs, drawn by a single horse,) 

 capable of conveying our luggage and a single person besides the 

 driver, a simple shoemaker who had never before undertaken so 

 formidable a journey, and who accordingly proved entirely want- 

 ing in the skill and tact necessary for conducting so frail a vehi- 

 cle over such difficult mountain tracks, for roads they can scarcely 

 be called. We had first to ascend the steep ridge interposed be- 

 tween the Middle and the South Forks of the Holston, called 

 Brushy Mountain, during the ascent of which we commenced 

 botanizing in earnest. The first interesting plant we met with 

 was Saxifraga erosa of Pursh, but only with ripe fruit, and even 

 with the seeds for the most part fallen from the capsules. The 

 same locality also furnished us with a few specimens of the pretty 

 Thalictrum Jilipes, Torr. 6f Gr. (to which the name of T. 

 clavatum, DC. must be restored,) a plant which abounds along 

 all the cold and clear brooks throughout the mountains of North 

 Carolina ; where it could not well have escaped the notice of Mi- 

 chaux, in whose herbarium DeCandolle found the specimen (with 

 no indication of its habitat) on which his T. clavatum was es- 

 tablished. The authors of the Flora of No7^th America, having 

 only an imperfect fruiting specimen of their T. filipes, and not 

 sufficiently remarking the discrepancies between the T. clava^ 

 turn, Hook. fj. Bor.-Am. and the figure and description of De 

 Candolle's plant, in regard to the length of the styles, assumed the 

 former to be the true T. clavatum, and described their own plant 

 as a new species. But our specimens accord so perfectly with 

 the figure of DeLessert, (except in the greater, but variable length 

 of the stipes to the fruit, and in the veining of the carpels, which, 

 doubtless by an oversight of the artist, is omitted in the figure,) 

 as to leave no doubt of their identity. The subarctic plant may 

 be appropriately called T. Richardsonii, in honor of its discov- 

 erer ; and some few particulars should be added to DeCandoJle's 

 character of our own plant.* The flowers of this species are 



* Thalictrum clavatum {DC.) : glabenimum, floribus hermaphroditis laxe 

 corymbosis, filamentis clavatis, antheris ellipticis muticis, carpellis (5 — 10) stipita- 

 tis stellatira patentibus clavato-lunulatis compressis levitev nervosis stylo brevissL- 

 mo vix rostellatls, caule gracili inferne nudo, foliis biternatis petiolatis, foliolis ro- 

 tunjJis crenato-incisis lobatisve subtus glaucis. — T. clavatum, DC. syst. 1.;). 171; 

 DeLess. ic. 1. t. 6, non Hook. T. filipes, Torr. 8^ Gray,fl. JV. Am. 1. p. 33. 



Hab. ad fontes umbrosos rivulosque montium Virginiee (comitatu Grayson) et 

 Carolinas Septentrionalis frequens. 



Vol. XLii, No. 1.— Oct.-Dec. 1841. 3 



