MEMOIRS 
OF THE 
IORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
Vol. IV. No. 2. 
Report of the Botanical Exploration of Southwestern Virginia During 
the Season of 1892, 
Bv JoHN K. SMALL AND ANNA MURRAY VAIL. 
The term Southwestern Virginia is a rather vague expression 
and to the majority of botanists it does not by any means convey 
its real significance. Occasionally it is met with in botanical text- 
books or on the labels of some collector who has made a limited 
excursion into that region. On an ordinary geographical map 
this tract of country appears quite small, and it is not until one 
enters it that it is realized how vast and important, as well as in- 
teresting, the district really is. 
Early in the spring of 1892 several members of the Torrey 
Botanical Club planned an extended excursion to the border-land 
of Southwestern Virginia and North Carolina. Entering the field 
through the Valley of Virginia, on the sixteenth day of May, 
they selected Marion, the court house of Smyth County, as a 
centre from which exploring trips could be made. 
Marion lies in and near the lower end of the great Valley of 
Virginia, which forms a more or less natural boundary between 
the Blue Ridge on the east and the Alleghany Mountains on the 
West. The territory visited lay close to the North Carolina State 
line, and the ground that was most thoroughly explored was that 
within a radius of about twenty miles from Marion, though a number 
of excursions to more distant localities and points of special 
Prominence were made at intervals. Marion is situated near the 
Virginia and North Carolina boundary line, which, besides being 
Mem, Torr, Bor. Crus, Vol. IV., Part 2, Sig. 1, Nov. 18, 1893. 
