“Small eldern, by the Indian fletchers sought;”—
which was perhaps arrow-wood, or Viburnum dentatum, L.
[176] Alnus, Tourn. One of the three New-England species (A. incana, Willd.) is common to Europe and America. Another (A. serrulata, Willd.) “bears so great a resemblance,” says F. A. Michaux, to the common European alder (A. glutinosa, Willd.) “in its flowers, its seeds, its leaves, its wood, and its bark, as to render a separate figure unnecessary; the only difference observable between them” being “that the European species is larger, and has smaller leaves.”—Sylva, vol. ii. p. 114. Compare Gray, Statistics, &c., l. c., p. 83. A. viridis, our third species, is common to Europe and this country.
[177] Corylus, L. Our species, which are peculiar to America, are both indicated: the “filberd, ... with hairy husks upon the nuts,” being C. rostrata, Ait. (beaked hazel); and that “setting hollow from the nut,”—that is, larger than the nut.—C. Americana, Wangenh. (common hazel).
[178] Carya, Nutt. In the Voyages, p. 69, the author speaks of the “walnut, which is divers: some bearing square nuts; others like ours, but smaller. There is likewise black walnut, of precious use for tables, cabinets, and the like” (Juglans nigra, L.). “The walnut-tree,” continues Josselyn, “is the toughest wood in the countrie, and therefore made use of for hoops and bowes; there being no yews there growing. In England, they made their bowes usually of witch-hasel” (that is, witch-elm,—Ulmus montana, Bauh., Lindl.; as see Gerard, p. 1481: but Carpinus, “in Essex, is called witch-hasell,”—ib.), “ash, yew, the best of outlandish elm; but the Indians make theirs of walnut.” This was hickory, and what Wood says belongs doubtless to the same. He calls it “something different from the English walnut; being a great deal more tough and more serviceable, and altogether heavy. And whereas our guns, that are stocked with English walnut, are soon broken and cracked in frost,—being a brittle wood,—we are driven to stock them new with the country walnut, which will endure all blows and weather; lasting time out of mind.” After speaking favorably of the fruit, he adds (New-Eng. Prospect, chap. vi.), “There is likewise a tree, in some parts of the country, that bears a nut as big as a pear,”—the butternut, doubtless (Juglans cinerea, L.). Josselyn has told us (p. 48) of the oil which the Indians managed to get from the acorns of the white oak. Roger Williams (Key, l. c., p. 220) says our native Americans made “of these walnuts ... an excellent oil, good for many uses, but especially for the anointing of their heads.” Michaux (Sylva, vol. i. p. 163) says the Indians used the oil of the butternut, and also (p. 185) of the shag-bark, “to season their aliments.” Williams adds (l. c.), “Of the chips of the walnut-tree—the bark taken off—some English in the country make excellent beer, both for taste, strength, colour, and inoffensive opening operation.”
[179] Castanea vesca, Gaertn.; common to Europe and America. Our chestnut is considered to differ from the European only as an American variety of a species common to both continents might be expected to. “The Indians have an art of drying their chestnuts, and so to preserve them in their barns for a dainty all the year.”—R. Williams, l. c.
[180] Neither Wood nor R. Williams makes mention of it. The younger Michaux considered our beech distinct from the European; but Mr. Nuttall makes it only a variety of it; while Prof. Gray puts both trees in his list of “very close representative species.”—Statistics, &c., l. c., p. 81.
[181] Fraxinus, L. Our species are peculiar to this continent. I cannot account for Wood’s saying, “It is different from the ash of England; being brittle and good for little, so that walnut is used for it.”—New-Eng. Prospect, chap. vi.
[182] Sorbus, L. (Gerard, p. 1473). Our mountain-ash (S. Americana, Willd.) is quite near to the quicken, or mountain-ash of the north of Europe (S. aucuparia, L.); but hardly, perhaps, to be reduced to an American variety of it, as the elder Michaux (Fl. Amer., vol. i. p. 290) proposed. Compare Gray, Statistics, &c., l. c., p. 82.
[183] Except the small white birch (B. populifolia, Ait.), which Mr. Spach reduces to a variety of the European B. alba, L.,—in which he is sustained by Prof. Gray (Man., p. 411),—and the dwarf-birch (B. nana, L.) of our alpine regions, all our species are peculiar to this continent.—See the author’s Voyages, p. 69, for another mention of the birches.