30 PREFACE. 



a list of such plants as he had observed in his neigh- 

 borhood. 



Prof. A. Gray, of the University of Cambridge, 

 and John Carey, Esq., of New York, examined the 

 principal mountains of Ashe and Yancey in 1841, 

 and detected several species of plants which had 

 escaped the notice of previous investigators. An in- 

 teresting account of this expedition may be found in 

 an article by Prof. Gray in the American Journal of 

 Science, vol. xlii, to which I am indebted for much 

 of the information here given of the early explorers 

 of our alpine district. 



The same distinguished Botanist, with Mr. Sulli- 

 vant of Ohio, in 1843, entered our mountains from 

 Virginia, the former continuing along the range to 

 Georgia ; the latter leaving the State by the French 

 Broad River. The results of this tour have not been 

 formally published. Large collections, however, 

 were made by Prof. Gray for the Botanic Garden at 

 Cambridge ; and two beautiful volumes of specimens 

 of Mosses and Liverworts were prepared by Mr. Sulli- 

 vant, which were gratuitously distributed among 

 Naturalists in this country and Europe. In a subse- 

 quent year Mr. Sullivant made a botanical recon- 

 noissance in the low country of North Carolina. 



Mr. S. B. Buckley has also made valuable contri- 

 butions to our knowledge of the Flora of Western 

 Carolina. In 1842 he entered the State by the Hi- 

 wassee River, spending the summer in a careful ex- 

 amination of the principal summits and watercourses 



