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AND INTO ALABAMA
Having followed the Cumberland Azalea to Georgia and North Carolina there remained the possibility that it might also occur in Alabama — since the Cumberland Plateau enters into the northeastern part of this state. On the eighteenth of June the Chevrolet was consequently headed towards Jackson County, Alabama. Along the way some excellent Sweet Azalea, R. arborescens, was found in full flower, white with pale yellow blotch, growing with Catawba Rhododendron in a moist valley near Cloudland in DeKalb County and again not far away, while after crossing the Tennessee River and making a sharp climb of the steep ascent of the plateau north from Scottsboro in Jackson County abundant Cumberland Azalea was still in flower in open forest near Kyles on Crow Mountain. It was certainly in northern Alabama and on reflecting the matter in camp that night there came a wild thought of Alabama's highest point, isolated Mt. Cheaha, a hundred miles south in Talladega County. Pulling a long shot, we packed lunch next morning, took to the mountain road which became poorer and very dusty through the forest climb up Cheaha, and by noon were enjoying this lunch seated amid Cumberland Azalea right on the summit of the mountain! They were a little past bloom but there was ample color to aid recognition of this gratifying find at a lone point so far from Kentucky and Yahoo Ridge. But this was no large batch of azaleas; beneath the windbent oaks were perhaps a few hundred plants in this colony which must have been isolated for a very long time. It was hoped that they might show something more of original characters or flower color but on superficial examination they were similar indeed to the little azalea we had followed so far. It is of passing interest that Rehder did not record the existence of a calendulaceum-like azalea in Alabama and that the reference in the Eighth Edition of Gray's Manual should properly refer to the Cumberland Azalea rather than to R. calendulaceum proper.
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