137 
The Biltmore Forest School, organized ten years ago, is located 
at Biltmore from November to April, and is removed to Pisgah 
Forest for the remainder of the year. The forenoon of each day 
is regularly devoted to lectures and the afternoon to excursions 
for observation and the practical application of forestry methods 
n 
direction of Cold Mountain, The Balsams, and Pisgah Ridge. 
The valley is about eight miles long, with an elevation of 3,000 
to 3,500 ft., and the surrounding ridges that completely shut it 
in, except at two points, reach an elevation of a thousand feet more. 
The forest is composed of hardwood species, chestnut, oak and 
tulip predominating, while pitch pine occurs sparingly on the dry 
ridges and white pine and hemlock along the streams. Minor 
hardwoods are hickory, black gum, basswood, saurwood, birch, 
maple, black locust, butternut, ash and Fraser's magnolia. Rho- 
dodendron, Kalmia and Azalea are exceedingly abundant, forming 
impenetrable thickets in many places, which, when in flower, are 
visible from a distance as pink-colored masses or “beds.” Gay- 
lussaccia ursina and Vaccinium corymbosum are also very abun- 
dant in the undergrowth. Balsam and spruce forests are found 
at an altitude of five to six thousand feet on summits easily 
reached from Pink Bed Valley. 
When I reached the valley, on July 13, a season of wet 
weather had brought out quantities of fleshy fungi, which, with 
the assistance of Dr. H. D. House, were collected in abundance. 
Many of the thinner forms dried readily in the sun, but the more 
fleshy agarics and all of the Boleti had to be dried by artificial 
heat, excellent facilities being provided for this purpose by Dr. 
chenck. This collection, with the notes I was able to obtain 
from the study of specimens in the field, should be especially val- 
uable to the student of American fungi because of the pioneer 
work done in North Carolina by Schweinitz and Curtis, the former 
having published in 1822 a list of 1,373 species of fungi found in 
