[166] Great toad-flax (Gerard, em., p. 550); Linaria vulgaris, Moench. Compare De Candolle (Geog. Bot., vol. ii. p. 716) for a sketch of the American history of this now familiar plant, which the learned author cannot trace before Bigelow’s date (Fl. Bost., edit. 1) of 1814. But it is certainly Cutler’s “snapdragon; ... blossoms yellow, with a mixture of scarlet; common by roadsides in Lynn and Cambridge” (l. c., 1785): though he strangely prefixes the Linnæan phrase for Antirrhinum Canadense, L.; and there seems no reason to doubt that Josselyn may very well have seen it in 1671.
[167] Gerard, p. 653 (Teucrium, L.). The author may have intended to reckon the genus only. Our species is peculiar to this continent.
[168] The designation is uncertain. The old botanists gave the name Auricula muris, or mouse-ear, to species of Myosotis, Draba, Hieracium, and Gnaphalium. Josselyn’s plant may most probably be Antennaria plantaginifolia, Hook. (mouse-ear of New England), which is very near to A. dioica of Europe.—Gray, Statistics, &c., l. c., p. 81.
[169] Quercus alba, L.; Q. rubra, L.; and Q. tinctoria, Bartr. Wood’s account of the oaks (New-England’s Prospect, chap. v.) is similar. In his Voyages, p. 61, Josselyn gives us “the ordering of red oake for wainscot. When they have cut it down and clear’d it from the branches, they pitch the body of the tree in a muddy place in a river, with the head downward, for some time. Afterwards they draw it out; and, when it is seasoned sufficiently, they saw it into boards for wainscot; and it will branch out into curious works.”
[170] Juniperus communis, L.; common to both continents. But the author did not probably distinguish from it J. Virginiana, L.; which is frequent, and often dwarfish, near the sea.
[171] Salix, L.; the genus only meant here, it is likely.
[172] Daphne Laureola, L. (Gerard, p. 1404), with which Josselyn may have considered Kalmia angustifolia, L., in some sort allied. The latter has long been known in New England as dwarf or low laurel.
[173] Myrica Gale, L. (Gerard, p. 1414); common to Europe and America.
[174] Sambucus, L. Our S. Canadensis, L. differs very little from the common elder of Europe, except, as our author in his Voyages says (p. 71), in being “shrubbie,” and in not having “a smell so strong.”—Cf. DC. Prodr., vol. ii. p. 322; Gerard, p. 1421. The other North-American elder (S. pubens, Michx.) is at least equally near to the European S. racemosa, L., according to Prof. Gray.
[175] “There is a sort of dwarf-elder, that grows by the sea-side, that hath a red pith. The berries of both”—that is, of this and of the true elder mentioned above—“are smaller than English elder; not round, but corner’d.”—Voyages, p. 71. Gerard’s dwarf-elder (p. 1425) is Sambucus ebulus, L. Josselyn’s may have been a Viburnum; for this genus was confused with Sambucus by the elder botanists. Wood (New-England Prospect, chap. v.) speaks of—