2 THE WEST VIRGINIA FLORA 



little loam. The clay of the more open steep hillsides is so 

 unctuous and unstable that frequent landslides occur during 

 Spring, sometimes of great extent. This subsidence renders the 

 valley streams muddy throughout the year. The rocks are 

 principally sandstone and limestone, with some outcroppings of 

 shales on the northeastern heights. The special features of very 

 fertile and quite sterile soils, varied altitude and the vast areas 

 of primitive forests, yield a flora of great variety, often widely 

 differing at points only a few miles apart. 



The amount of exploration necessary to gain a full knowl- 

 edge of the flora under these conditions becomes an arduous un- 

 dertaking, though the interest in searching an almost virgin field 

 is so deep as to greatly lighten the labor. 



BOTANICAL FIELD WORK IN THE STATE. 



That several of the early Pennsylvanian, Virginian and 

 North Carolinian Botanists, including Peter Kalm, John Eraser, 

 John Clayton, Thomas Nuttall, John Mitchell and others, col- 

 lected within the eastern borders of the State is reasonably cer- 

 tain, though I have not been able, so far, to establish their lo- 

 calities with any degree of certainty. There is great difiiculty 

 in locating West Virginian stations in the field work of the very 

 early Botanists from the fact that most of their notes and labels 

 read simply "Virginia." Previous to 1784 Virginia extended 

 indefinitely from the Atlantic to any point beyond the Ohio River, 

 while the border lines of West Virginia were not estabhshed 

 until 1863. Then, too, the country was so thinly settlemented 

 and localities so uncertainly named that ascribing definite geo- 

 graphic place to collected plants was impossible to the knapsack 

 traveller. 



The following chronologic tabulation gives all the informa- 

 tion that I have been able to compile upon the field work of 

 botanists within the State. 



(1) Andre Michaux, the renowned French Botanist (who traveled 

 extensively in North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and IlHnois ; 

 even North into Canada and South into Florida and the 

 Bahamas) ; made many journeys, under conditions of great 

 hardship and no little danger, along the out confines of the 

 • mountain borders of West Virginia; especially in the New 

 River region of southwestern Virginia. He is credited by one 

 of his biographers with field work in the contiguous West 



