14 Botanical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina. 



vulgare is every where naturalized ; and Euphorbia Lathyris 

 must also be added to the list of naturalized plants. The little 

 Verbena angustifolia is also a common weed. We collected but 

 a single indigenous plant of any interest, and one which we by 

 no means expected to find, viz. Carex stenolepis of Torrey,* 

 which here, as in the Western States, to which we supposed it 

 confined, takes the place of the northern C. retrorsa. We search- 

 ed for its constant companion, C. ^hortii, and the next day we 

 found the two growing together. During the day's ride, we ob- 

 served that the bearded wheat was almost exclusively cultivated, 

 and were informed that it had been found less subject to the rav- 

 ages of the "Fly," than the ordinary varieties ; which may be 

 owing to the recent introduction of the seed of the bearded vari- 

 ety from districts unmolested by this insect. 



The following day we travelled only sixteen miles on our route, 

 but from Mount Sidney made an interesting excursion on foot to 

 Weyefs Cave, one of the largest, and certainly the most remark- 

 able grotto in the United States. It has been so often described 

 as to render any account on our part superfluous. Near the cave 

 we saw some trees of Tilia hetorophylla, Vent. (T. alba, Michx. 

 f. sylv. ?) and collected a few specimens with unopened flower- 

 buds. It appears to be the most abundant species along the moun- 

 tains. 



Our ride next day offered nothing of interest. Near Staunton, 

 we saw some patches of Delphinium Consolida, where it was 



* It is the C. Franhii of Kunth (1837,) and of Kunze's Supplement to 

 Schkuhr's Caricography, where it is well figured : it was distributed among Dr. 

 Frank's plants under the name of C. atherodes, and with the locality of Baltimore 

 in Pennsylvania! I had always supposed it to be derived from some part of the 

 Western States ; but since it abounds in the Valley of Virginia, it may have been 

 collected near Baltimore, Maryland! By the way, we hope the excellent collec- 

 tions distributed from time to time by the Unio Itineraria are in general, more 

 correctly ticketed than poor Frank's small collection from the United States. Not 

 to venture beyond the Carices, we may remark that the plant distributed under the 

 name of C. hlanda is C. Careyana, Dewey; their C. plantaginea is C. anceps, and 

 their C. F/ccA:ii is a variety of the same; their C. trihuloldes, Wahl., a variety of 

 C. festucacea ; their C. depauperata var. Americana (C. Hitchcockiana of Dewey) 

 is a large form of C. oligocarpa, Schk. (the true C. oligocarpa of Schkukr, but 

 not of other authors, being a small state of Prof Dewey's C. Hitchcockiana ;) and 

 that the C. Ohiotica, (formosa, Dewey ?) Hochst., is C. Shortii. This last, we may 

 add, is the C. formosa of Kunth's Cyperographia, which will account for the dis- 

 crepancy between his description and that of Dewey's C. formosa. The C.juncea 

 of Willdenow and of Kunth is, I am confident, only C. brachystachys, and not of 

 American origin. 



