Vol. 6 No. 3 



TORREYA ,™- 



,, ^ ^ B0TAN?CA1 



March, 1906 (jARDi 



A NOVEMBER DAY IN THE UPPER PART OF THE 

 COASTAL PLAIN OF NORTH CAROLINA 



By Roland M. Harper 



In passing through the upper edge of the coastal plain of 

 North Carolina several times in the last few years I had often 

 wished for a chance to stop off and examine more closely some 

 of the many interesting things seen from the car windows ; but 

 a favorable opportunity for doing so did not arrive until November 

 17 last. On the morning of that day I alighted at Hamlet, in 

 the fall-line sand-hills of Richmond County, and a few minutes 

 later boarded a train bound for Wilmington. Leaving the train 

 shortly after 10 o'clock at Pembroke, in Robeson County, 32 

 miles distant, I spent the remaining daylight hours in walking 

 back along the railroad — a perfectly straight and nearly level 

 route — to Laurinburg, in Scotland County, about midway 

 between Hamlet and Pembroke. (The counties mentioned all 

 border on South Carolina.) Notwithstanding the lateness of 

 the season. Aster sqiiarrostis and one or two other .species were 

 still in bloom, and the weather was all that could be desired. 



The fall-line sand-hills and their characteristic flora, which are 

 so well developed for some fifty miles northeast of Hamlet, do 

 not seem to extend more than ten miles southeast of there. 

 Continuing in that direction the face of the country gradually 

 flattens, until at Pembroke, which is some eighty miles from the 

 coast, if seems as level as the flat pine-barrens in the coast 

 counties of Georgia. As to whether the same topography con- 

 tinues all the way to the coast or not I have no definite informa- 

 tion ; but it seems likely that it does, since the railroad is said to 

 be straight all the way to Wilmington. 



[No. 2, Vol. 6, of TORREYA, comprising pages 21-40, was issued February 19, 

 1906.] 



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