Abstract
It is widely admitted that the forests of eastern United States reach their culmination in the southern Appalachians, particularly in the Unaka range of North Carolina and Tennessee. It is in the mountains of this range that the greatest height east of the Rocky mountains is reached; in the Black mountains with Mt. Mitchell, the Craggy mountains and the Great Smoky mountains, with some forty peaks over 6,000 feet in altitude, and with Mt. Guyot and Clingman's Dome topping them all. Here on these lofty peaks (for many of them rise over a mile in altitude above their base), in a region of high rainfall and high humidity, there is rich flora -- rich in species and rich in numbers.