Part 40

Genista tinctoria, L. (Genistella tinctoria,—greenweed, or dyers’ weed; Gerard, p. 1316). “We shall not need to speake of the use that diers make thereof,” says the latter. Our author could hardly have been mistaken about so well-known a plant as this; which he probably met with in one of his visits to the neighborhood of Boston,—long the only American station for it. There is a tradition that it was introduced here by Gov. Endicott; which may have been some forty years before Josselyn finished his herborizing,—enough to account for its naturalization then. It was long confined to Salem (“pastures between New Mills and Salem,”—Cutler, l. c., 1785); but occurred to me sparingly, in 1841, on the shores of Cambridge Bay, and also on roadsides in Old Cambridge. “Woad-seed” is set down, in a memorandum of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, before February, 1628, to be sent to New England (Mass. Col. Rec., vol. i. p. 24); and though Isatis tinctoria, L., is true woad, Reseda luteola, L. (wold, or weld), and our Genista (woadwaxen), have, it is said (Rees’s Cycl., in loco), been known “in English herbals under that name.”

“Current-bushes are of two kinds,—red and black. The black currents, which are larger than the red, ... are reasonable pleasant in eating.”—Voyages, p. 72. Our black currant is Ribes floridum, Herit.,—considered by Linnæus (Sp. Pl., p. 291) only a variety of R. nigrum, L., the true black currant of the gardens; and our red currant, which I have gathered in the White Mountains,—far below the region of R. rigens, Michx., the more common red currant there,—appears to be undistinguishable from R. rubrum, L. (the red currant of gardens); unless, possibly, as an American variety of it. This is probably R. albinervium, Michx. (Fl., vol. i. p. 110; Pursh, Fl., vol. i. p. 163).

Polyporus, Mich., sp.—In his Voyages, p. 70, the author speaks of “a stately tree growing here and there in valleys, not like to any trees in Europe; having a smooth bark, of a dark-brown colour, the leaves like great maple in England called sycamor; but larger,”—which may be Platanus occidentalis, L. (button-wood). And Wood enables us to add one more to this early account of the genera of plants, which we possess, common to the Old World. He tells us (New-England’s Prospect, chap. v.) “the hornbound tree is a tough kind of wood, that requires so much pains in riving as is almost incredible; being the best to make bowls and dishes, not being subject to crack or leak. This tree growing with broad-spread arms, the vines twist their curling branches about them; which vines afford great store of grapes,” &c. This was our American hornbeam (Carpinus Americana, L.). And the same author again alludes to it, in verse, as—

“The horn-bound tree, that to be cloven scorns; Which from the tender vine oft takes his spouse, Who twines embracing arms about his boughs.”

A pleasant enough illustration of what taught classical husbandry,—“ulmis adjungere vites.”—Georg., i. 2.

See also the Voyages, p. 73. “It is almost incredible,” says Higginson (New-England’s Plantation, l. c., p. 118), “what great gaine some of our English planters have had by our Indian corne. Credible persons have assured me,—and the partie himselfe avouched the truth of it to me,—that, of the setting of thirteen gallons of corne, hee hath had encrease of it 52 hogsheads; every hogshead holding seven bushels, of London measure: and every bushell was by him sold and trusted to the Indians for so much beaver as was worth 18 shillings. And so, of this 13 gallons of corne, which was worth 6 shillings 8 pence, he made about 327 pounds of it the yeere following, as by reckoning will appeare; where you may see how God blessed husbandry in this land. There is not such greate and plentifull eares of corne, I suppose, any where else to bee found but in this countrey; because, also of varietie of colours,—as red, blew, and yellow, &c.: and of one corne there springeth four or five hundred.” Roger Williams (Key, l. c., pp. 208, 221) has some interesting particulars of the Indian use of their corn. According to him, the Indian msickquatash (that is succotash, as we call it now) was “boiled corn whole,” and nawsaump, a kind of meal pottage unparched. From this the English call their samp; which is the Indian corn beaten and boiled, and eaten, hot or cold; with milk or butter,—which are mercies beyond the natives’ plain water, and which is a dish exceeding wholesome for the English bodies.

Acorus Calamus, L.; common to Europe and America. In his Voyages, p. 77, the author drops properly, in mentioning this, the injurious prefix. It seems that our New-England forefathers used the leaves to cover their cold floors, as they had used rushes at home; and, according to Sir W. J. Hooker (Br. Fl., vol. i. p. 159), the pleasant smell of the plant has recommended it, in like manner, “for strewing on the floor of the cathedral at Norwich, on festival days.”

Allium Canadense, L., probably.—See also p. 55, note 4.

“Knaves’-mustard (for that it is too bad for honest men).”—Gerard, p. 262. The “New-England mustard,” which was like it, may be Lepidium Virginicum, L.; which, having “a taste like common garden-cress, or peppergrass” (Bigel., Fl. Bost., in loco), perhaps attracted the first settlers.

The “many flowers,” with reflexed sepals, perhaps refer this to our noble American Turk’s-cap (Lilium superbum, L.), rather than to the yellow lily (L. Canadense, L.).

See p. 81.

“They take their wuttammauog,—that is, a weak tobacco,—which the men plant themselves, very frequently. Yet I never see any take so excessively as I have seen men in Europe; and yet excess were more tolerable in them, because they want the refreshing of beer and wine, which God had vouchsafed Europe.”—R. Williams, Key, l. c., p. 213. And, in another place, the same writer says that tobacco is “commonly the only plant which men labour in” (he is speaking of the Indians); “the women managing all the rest” (p. 208). Wood, in his list of Indian words (New-Eng. Prospect, ad ult.), spells the Indian word, above given, ottommaocke,—(perhaps both are comparable with “wuttahimneash, strawberries” Williams, l. c., p. 220), and “weetimoquat, it smells sweet” (Vocab. of Narraganset Lang., in Hist. Coll., vol. v. p. 82); og, ock, and ash, being all plural terminations; between which and “the noun in the singular one or more consonants or vowels are frequently interspersed” (ibid., vol. iii. p. 222, note); and oquat, from the context, the verbal; and the root appearing possibly the same,—and also defines it as tobacco. There is much other testimony that the New-England savages were found using “tobacco” (as Mourt’s Relation, l. c., p. 230; and Winslow’s Relation, l. c., p. 253); but our author’s text, above, appears to distinguish the true herb, “not much planted,” from “a small kind called pooke,” which “the Indians make use of.” And again, more clearly, in his Voyages, we have to the same effect: “the Indians in New England use a small, round-leafed tobacco, called by them or the fishermen poke. It is odious to the English.... Of marchantable ... tobacco, ... there is little of it planted in New England; neither have they” (both clauses appear to refer to the English) “learned the right way of curing of it.” This “marchantable tobacco” was no doubt mainly Nicotiana tabacum, L.; but the other kind, the weak tobacco,—cultivated, as Williams tells us, by the Indians, and recognized as tobacco by the English,—was not, as Wood says (N. E. Prospect, l. c.), colt’s-foot, but Nicotiana rustica, L. (the yellow henbane of Gerard’s Herbal, p. 356), well known to have been long in cultivation among the American savages, and now a naturalized relic of that cultivation in various parts of the United States. The name, poke, or pooke,—if it be, as is supposable, the same with “puck, smoke,” of the Narraganset vocabulary of R. Williams (Hist. Coll., vol. v. p. 84),—was perhaps always indefinite, and, since Cutler’s day, has been applied in New England to the green hellebore (Veratrum viride, Ait.); but this was not, it is evident, the poke of the first settlers. The name is also given to Phytolacca decandra, L. (the skoke of Cutler), and the hellebore apparently distinguished from this as Indian poke; but the application of the name to the former, at least, probably had its origin among the whites.

The figure sufficiently exhibits Sarracenia purpurea, L.

“Live-for-ever. It is a kind of cud-weed.... It growes now plentifully in our English gardens.... The fishermen, when they want” (that is, lack) “tobacco, take this herb; being cut and dryed.”—Voyages, p. 78; where the author adds the peculiar medicinal virtues of the plant, which are the same as those assigned by Gerard (p. 644) to the genus. Compare, as to this, Wood and Bache, Dispens., p. 1334. The species intended by Josselyn is our everlasting (Antennaria margaritacea (L.) Br.), described by Gerard, and figured by Johnson in his edition of the former (p. 641), and first published by Clusius (Gnaphalium Americanum, Rar. Pl. Hist., vol. i. p. 327) in 1601. Clusius had it from England, says Johnson. The dried herb, used by the fishermen instead of tobacco, and no doubt called by them poke, may have been mistaken by Wood for colt’s-foot, the leaves of which were “smoked by the ancients in pulmonary complaints; ... and, in some parts of Germany, are at the present time said to be substituted for tobacco.”—Wood and Bache, Dispens., p. 1401. Cornus sericea, L.,—“called by the natives squaw-bush” (Williamson’s Hist. Maine, vol. i. p. 125), and by the western Indians kinnikinnik (Gray, Man., p. 161); furnished, in its inner bark (on the medicinal properties of which, see especially Rees’s Cycl., Amer. ed., in loco), a substitute for Nicotiana,—very widely approved among the native Americans. The name, Indian tobacco, given to Lobelia inflata, L. (the emetic-weed of Cutler, l. c., p. 484; who “first attracted to it the attention of the profession”), by the whites, is in some connections confusing, and might well be displaced by wild tobacco, which is also in popular use.

Œnothera biennis, L. (Johnson’s Gerard, p. 475),—known to Europeans, according to Linnæus (Sp. Pl., p. 493), as early as 1614; but first described and figured by Prosper Alpinus, in his posthumous De Pl. Exoticis, p. 325, t. 324, cit. L. Johnson says that Parkinson gave it the English name of tree-primrose, which it still keeps. It is “vulgarly known by the name of scabish (a corruption, probably of scabious)” in the country.—Bigel. Fl. Bost., in loco. Josselyn describes the plant in his Voyages, p. 78.

Adiantum pedatum, L.—The European A. Camillus veneris, L., long used as a pectoral (the sirop de capillaire of French shops being made of it), is, according to Messrs. Wood and Bache (Dispens., p. 1290), “feebler” than our species, which Josselyn recommends.

See pp. 67, 68.

Johnson’s Gerard, p. 183: which is perhaps Allium magicum, L.; for which our A. tricoccum, Ait., may have been mistaken.—See also p. 54 of this; note.

Epilobium angustifolium, L. (rosebay willow-herbe of Gerard by Johnson); which last figures it at p. 477: common to Europe and America; but some botanists have, like Josselyn, reckoned the American plant “proper to the country.”

Helianthus, L. (Gerard, p. 751), a genus peculiar to America; called “American marygold” in the Voyages (p. 59), where it is set down among the more striking of our New-England flowers. At p. 82 of this book, the author gives a cut of the “marygold of America,” which he describes. It is probably the second one above mentioned, and perhaps H. strumosus, L., Gray. The other kind, with “black seeds,” was probably H. divaricatus, L.

See p. 47. The earth-nuts of Gerard (p. 1064) are species of Bulbocastanum of authors.

Not clear to me. But, taking the alleged virtues and the station into account, our author may mean here the rather striking American sea-rocket (Cakile Americana, Nutt.); which, it is likely, occurred to him. Spurge-time (p. 43) also grows on “sea-banks.”

“French beans; or, rather, American beans. The herbalists call them kidney-beans, from their shape and effects; for they strengthen the kidneys. They are variegated much,—some being bigger, a great deal, than others; some white, black, red, yellow, blue, spotted: besides your Bonivis, and Calavances, and the kidney-bean that is proper to Ronoake. But these are brought into the country: the other are natural to the climate.”—Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 73-4. R. Williams (Key, l. c., p. 208) gives manusquussedash as the Indian word for beans. Cornuti (whose book, indeed, is not confined to Canadian plants; though, on the other hand, he was sometimes ill informed of the true locality of his specimens; as in the case of Asclepias Cornuti, Decsne, which he published as A. Syriaca) figures and describes, at pp. 184-5, Phaseolus multiflorus, L.; and this may possibly have been raised from seeds procured by French missionaries from the Canadian savages: but P. vulgaris, L., our well-known bush-bean, is doubtless what Josselyn has mainly in view, as cultivated by the native Americans.

“Askutasquash,—their vine-apples,—which the English, from them, call squashes: about the bigness of apples of several colours.”—R. Williams, Key, &c., l. c., p. 222. “In summer, when their corn is spent, isquotersquashes is their best bread; a fruit much like a pumpion.”—Wood, New-Eng. Prospect, part 2, chap. vi. The late Dr. T. W. Harris made the ill-understood edible gourds a special object of study, and devoted particular attention to the ascertaining of the kinds cultivated by the American savages; but his papers have not as yet seen the light. The warted squash (Cucurbita verrucosa, L.) and the orange-gourd (C. aurantium, Willd.)—the fruit of which last is of the size and color of an orange, and “more tender than the common pompion” (Loudon, Encycl. Pl.)—are perhaps, in part, intended by our author.

“Pompions and water-mellons, too, they have good store,” says our author (Voyages, p. 130); and again, at p. 74 of the same, “The water-melon is proper to the countrie. The flesh of it is of a flesh-colour; a rare cooler of feavers, and excellent against the stone.” The water-melon (Cucurbita citrullus, L.) is “the only medicine the common people use in ardent fevers,” in Egypt (Loudon, l. c.). Cucurbita pepo, L. (Gr. πέπων; Low Dutch, pepoen, pompoen; Fr., pompone), is our English pompion, or pumpkin. At p. 91, Josselyn speaks of pompions “proper to the country.” Compare Gerard’s chapter “of melons, or pompions” (Johnson’s Gerard, p. 918), where are two Virginian sorts; and see “the ancient New-England standing dish,” at p. 91 of this book. The evidence appears to be sufficient, that our savages had in cultivation, together with their corn and tobacco,—and, like these, derived originally from tropical regions,—several sorts of what we call squashes, some kinds of pompion, and also water-melons; and, Graves’s letter (New-England Plantation, l. c., p. 124) adds, musk-melons. See further, especially, Champlain (Voy. de la Nouv. France, passim) and L’Escarbot (Hist. de la Nouv. France, vol. ii. p. 836). Mr. A. De Candolle (Geogr. Bot., vol. ii. pp. 899, 904) disputes the American origin of the edible gourds, but does not appear to have examined all the early authorities for their cultivation by the savages before the settlement of this country. Such cultivation appears to be made out, and to indicate that these vegetables have probably been known, from very remote antiquity, in the warmer parts of America. But this does not touch the difficult question of origin; and it may still appear that the gourds are equally ancient in Europe, and derived, both here and there, from Asia (De Cand., l. c.); such derivation being explainable, in the case of America, by old migrations from Asia through Polynesia.—Pickering, Races of Man, chap. 17.

Johnson’s Gerard, p. 528; where the same plant is also called “jagged or rose penniwoort,” and is probably what our author intends at p. 43 of this. It was no doubt our pretty Saxifraga Virginiensis, Michx., which Josselyn had in view. In his Voyages, p. 80, he assigns to it the medicinal virtues which Gerard attributes to the great navel-wort, or wall-pennywort (Cotyledon umbilicus, Huds.).

Convolvulus sepium, L. (great bind-weed) is exceedingly like to C. Scammonia, L., the inspissated juice of which is the officinal scammony; and is common to Europe and North America. Gerard’s bryony of Peru (p. 872-3), to which Josselyn refers, is, whatever it be, not found here. Compare Cutler’s remarks on C. sepium (Account of Veg., &c., l. c., p. 416). Mechoacan, “called ... Indian briony, or briony, or scammony of America,” from the Caribbee Islands, &c., is described in Hughes, Amer. Physitian (1672), p. 94; and see Wood and Bache, Dispens., p. 424, note.

Rosa Carolina, L. (Carolina rose), probably.—See Cutler’s observations, l. c., p. 451. Higginson also notices “single damaske roses, verie sweete.”—New-Eng. Plantation, l. c., p. 119. Our Carolina rose is said to be common in English shrubberies.