Part 38

Mentha aquatica, L. Sp. Pl. (Gerard, p. 684); for which it is likely our author (and also Cutler, l. c., p. 460) mistook M. Canadensis, L., Gray.

Nepeta cataria, L. (Gerard, em., p. 682); considered by American botanists to have been introduced from Europe.

Agrimonia Eupatoria, L. (Gerard, em., p. 712); common to America and Europe.

Xanthium strumarium, L., Gray (Gerard, p. 809); common, as a species, to both continents; but in part, also, introduced.—Gray, Man., p. 212.

Nuphar advena, Ait.,—the common American species,—is meant; and this, though resembling N. lutea, Sm., of Europe, is distinct from it.

Arum, L. (Gerard, p. 381). The New-England species “differ,” as our author says, “from all the kinds” in the Old World.

None of the species, presumably here meant, are common to America and Europe. Our author’s white violet is Viola blanda, Willd.

All our true honeysuckles (“woodbinde, or honisuckles,”—Gerard, p. 891; Caprifolium, Juss.) are distinct from those of Europe; but what the author meant here is uncertain.

Convallaria, L.; Polygonatum, Tourn.; Smilacina, Desf. Many botanists have referred our smaller Solomon’s seal to the nearly akin C. multiflora of Europe; but Dr. Gray (Manual, p. 466) pronounces the former a distinct American species. The second of Josselyn’s species is the “Polygonatum Virginianum, or Virginian’s Salomon’s seale” of Johnson’s Gerard (p. 905), and also of Morison (Hist., cit. L.), and earliest described and figured by Cornuti as P. Canadense, &c., which is Smilacina stellata, (L.) Desf.; peculiar to America. The third is set down by our author, at p. 56, among the “plants proper to the country;” and Wood (New-Eng. Prospect, chap. v.) mentions it among eatable wild fruits, by the same name. It is probably Smilacina racemosa, (L.) Desf.,—a suggestion which I owe to my friend Rev. J. L. Russell’s notes upon Josselyn’s plants, in Hovey’s Magazine (March, April, and May, 1858); papers which were published after the manuscript of this edition had passed from the hands of the editor,—and is also confined to this continent.

Geranium, L. The first is G. Carolinianum, L., which nearly resembles Gerard’s dove’s-foot (p. 938); the second is G. Robertianum, L., common to us and Europe; and the third (Gerard, p. 940)—which cannot be G. dissectum—was meant, it is likely to be taken for synonymous with the fourth, or raven’s-claw,—doubtless our lovely G. maculatum, L., which belongs to that group of species which the old botanists distinguished by the common name Geranium batrachioides, or crow-foot geranium, which flowers in May, and is of well-known value in medicine; and the “knobby” root, attributed to Josselyn’s third kind, favors this opinion.

The genus Potentilla, L., in general, is perhaps intended by cinque-foil; and although our author probably confounded the common and variable Potentilla Canadensis, L., with the nearly akin P. reptans and P. verna, L., of Europe, yet the larger part of our New-England species are, with little doubt, common to both continents. What Josselyn referred to Tormentilla, L.,—a genus not now separated from Potentilla,—was probably a state of P. Canadensis, which resembles P. reptans, L., as remarked above (and was, indeed, mistaken for it by Cutler,—l. c., p. 453), as this does Tormentilla reptans, L.

Geum strictum, Ait.,—not found in England, but European (Gray, Man., p. 116),—is indicated by the author’s phrase; and see the Voyages, p. 78, for his opinion of its medicinal virtue.

Fragaria vesca, L. (the common wood-strawberry of Europe), is native here, according to Oakes (Catal. Verm., p. 12), “especially on mountains;” and I have even gathered it, but possibly naturalized, on the woody banks of Fresh Pond in Cambridge. Our more common strawberry was not separated from the European by Linnæus, but is now reckoned a distinct species. “There is likewise strawberries in abundance,” says Wood (New-England’s Prospect, l. c.),—“very large ones; some being two inches about. One may gather half a bushel in a forenoon.”—“This berry,” says Roger Williams (Key, in Hist. Coll., vol. iii. p. 221), “is the wonder of all the fruits growing naturally in those parts. It is of itself excellent; so that one of the chiefest doctors of England was wont to say, that God could have made, but God never did make, a better berry. In some parts, where the natives have planted, I have many times seen as many as would fill a good ship, within few miles’ compass. The Indians bruise them in a mortar, and mix them with meal, and make strawberry-bread.” Gookin also speaks of Indian-bread.—Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 150.

The two plants here intended, and supposed by the author to correspond with the “wild angelica” and “great wilde angelica” of Gerard (pp. 999-1000), may perhaps be taken for the same which Cornuti (Canad. Pl. Hist., pp. 196-200), thirty years before, had designated as new,—Josselyn’s Angelica sylvestris minor being Angelica lucida Canadensis of Cornuti, which is A. lucida, L. (and probably, as the French botanist describes the fruit as “minus foliacea vulgaribus,” also Archangelica peregrina, Nutt.); and his Angelica sylvestris major being A. atropurpurea Canadensis of Cornuti, or A. atropurpurea, L.

Smyrnium aureum, L. (golden Alexanders), now separated from that genus, was mistaken, it is quite likely, for S. olusatrum, L. (true Alexanders), to which it bears a considerable resemblance.—Gerard, p. 1019.

Achillea millefolium, L. Oakes has marked this as introduced (Catal. Vermont, p. 17): but it appeared to our author, in 1672, to be indigenous; and Dr. Gray reckons it among plants common to both hemispheres.—Statistics of Amer. Flora, in Am. Jour. Sci., vol. xxiii. p. 70. The author’s reference is to common yarrow.—Gerard, p. 1072.

Aquilegia Canadensis, L. As elsewhere, the author probably means here only that the genus is common to both continents.

At p. 56, both of these are set down among the “plants proper to the country.” The first, to follow Gerard (p. 1108), is Chenopodium botrys, L.,—a native of the south of Europe, and considered as an introduced species here. It has reputation in diseases of the chest.—Wood & Bache, Dispens., p. 213. Josselyn’s oak of Cappadocia (Gerard, p. 1108) is an American species,—Ambrosia elatior, L. Cutler says of it (l. c., p. 489), “It has somewhat the smell of camphire. It is used in antiseptick fomentations.”

Galium aparine, L. (Gerard, edit. cit., p. 1122), common to America and Europe.—Compare Gray, Man., p. 170.

The “Filix mas, or male ferne,” of Gerard, edit. cit., p. 1128 (for, says he, of the “divers sorts of ferne ... there be two sorts, according to the old writers,—the male and the female; and these be properly called ferne: the others have their proper names”), is the collective designation of four species of Aspidium; of which all, according to Pursh, and certainly three, are natives of both continents,—AA. cristatum, Filix mas, Filix fæmina, and aculeatum, Willd. “Filix fæmina (female ferne, or brakes,)” of Gerard, l. c. is Pteris aquilina, L.; also common to us and Europe. The other Filices mentioned by our author are Ophioglossum vulgatum, L. (p. 42); and Adiantum pedatum, L. (p. 55).

Oxalis corniculata, L. (Gerard, em., p. 1202), common to Europe and America.

Ulmus, L. There are no species common to America and Europe.

See the Voyages, p. 69, where the author has it “the line-tree, with long nuts: the other kind I could never find.” The former was Tilia Americana, L.,—a species peculiar to America.

See p. 48; and Voyages, p. 69. None of our species are found in Europe.

The plant intended is doubtless the same with that spoken of in the Voyages, p. 80.—“Rosa solis, sundew, moor-grass. This plant I have seen more of than ever I saw in my whole life before in England,” &c. Both our common New-England species of Drosera are also natives of Europe.

“Differing much from those in England. One sort of them bears a most beautiful flower” (p. 56, where it is rightly placed among plants “proper to the country”). The author refers here, doubtless, to Apios tuberosa, Moench. (ground-nut of New England), which was raised at Paris, from American seeds, by Vespasian Robin, and figured from his specimens by Cornuti (Canad., p. 200) in 1635; but it was celebrated, ten years earlier, in “Nova Anglia,”—a curious poem by the Rev. William Morrell, who came over with Capt. Robert Gorges in 1623, and spent about a year at Weymouth and Plymouth, publishing his book in 1625 (repr. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 125, &c.),—as follows:—

“Vimine gramineo nux subterranea suavis Serpit humi, tenui flavo sub cortice, pingui Et placido nucleo nivei candoris ab intra, Melliflua parcos hilarans dulcedine gustus, Donec in æstivum Phœbus conscenderit axem. His nucleis laute versutus vescitur Indus: His exempta fames segnis nostratibus omnis Dulcibus his vires revocantur victibus almæ.”

See p. 52 and Voyages (pp. 70, 81) for other notices of Fungi; and Voyages, p. 81, for the only mention of Algæ.