Botanical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina. 3 



made such important discoveries. For this purpose, I am for- 

 tunately supplied with sufficient materials, having had the op- 

 portunity of consulting the original journals of Michaux, pre- 

 sented by his son to the American Philosophical Society. I am 

 indebted for this privilege, to the kindness of John Vaughan, 

 Esq., the Secretary of the society, who directed my attention to 

 these manuscripts, and permitted me to extract freely whatever 

 I deemed usefid or interesting. The first fasciculus of the diary 

 is wanting ; but we learn from a chance record, as well as from 

 published sources,* that he embarked at L'Orient on the 29th of 

 September, 1785, and arrived at New York on the 13th of No- 

 vember. The private journal from which the following infor- 

 mation is derived, commences in April, 1787 ; prior to which 

 date he had established two gardens, or nurseries, to receive his 

 collections of living plants, until they could be conveniently 

 transported to Prance — one in New Jersey, near the city of New 

 York ; the other about ten miles from Charleston, South Caro- 

 lina. Into the latter, it appears, he introduced some exotic trees, 

 which he thought snitable to the chmate ; and the younger Mi- 

 chaux, who visited this garden several years afterwards, men- 

 tions two Ginkgos {Salishuria adiantifolia), which in seven 

 years had attained an elevation of thirty feet ; also some fine spe- 

 cimens of Sterculia platanifolia, and a large number of young 

 plants of Mimosa Julibrissin, propagated from a tree which his 

 father had brought from Europe. From this stock, probably, the 

 latter has been disseminated throughout the Southern States, and 

 is beginning to be naturalized in many places. 



I have no means of ascertaining what portions of the country 

 Michaux had visited previously to April, 1787, when he set out 

 from Charleston on his first journey to the Alleghany Mountains, 

 by way of Savannah, ascending the river of that name to its 

 sources in the Cherokee country, and following very nearly the 

 route taken by Bartram eleven years before.f He reached the 



* Vide Michaux, Flora Borcali-Aincricana ; Introd. See also j3 Sketch of the 

 progress of Botany in Western America, hy Dr. Short, in the Transylvania Journal 

 of Medicine, JYo. 35 ; and in Hooker's Journal of Botany, for November, 1840. I 

 am informed that an interesting notice of Michaux is contained in the 8t)i volume 

 of tlie Dictionnaire Encyclopedicjue de Botanique, (under the head of Voyageurs ;) 

 a work which unfortunately I am not able at this moment to consult. 



t In this journey he was accompanied by his son, who shortly afterwards re- 

 turned to Europe. Before they reached Augusta, their horses were stolen, a mis- 



