A 'Thousand-Mile Walk 
of Burns's poems, Milton's Paradise Lost, and 
a small New Testament, he waited for me, 
handed back my bag, and returned down the 
hill, saying that he had forgotten something. 
I found splendid growths of shining-leaved 
Ericaceae [heathworts] for which the Alleghany 
Mountains are noted. Also ferns of which Os- 
munda cinnamomea [Cinnamon Fern] is the 
largest and perhaps the most abundant. Os- 
munda regalis [Flowering Fern] is also common 
here, but not large. In Wood’s 1 and Gray's 
Botany Osmunda cinnamomea is said to be a 
much larger fern than Osmunda claytoniana. 
This I found to be true in Tennessee and 
southward, but in Indiana, part of Illinois, and 
Wisconsin the opposite is true. Found here 
the beautiful, sensitive Schrankia , or sensitive 
brier. It is a long, prickly, leguminous vine, 
with dense heads of small, yellow fragrant 
flowers. 
1 Alphonso Wood, Class-book of Botany , with a Flora of 
the United States and Canada. The copy of this work, carried 
by Mr. Muir on his wanderings, is still extant. The edition 
is that of 1862. 
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