[220] Abies balsamea (L.) Marsh, (balsam-fir). “The firr-tree is a large tree, too; but seldom so big as the pine. The bark is smooth, with knobs, or blisters, in which lyeth clear liquid turpentine,—very good to be put into salves and oyntments. The leaves, or cones, boiled in beer, are good for the scurvie. The young buds are excellent to put into epithemes for warts and corns. The rosen is altogether as good as frankincense.... The knots of this tree and fat-pine are used by the English instead of candles; and it will burn a long time: but it makes the people pale” (Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 66); besides being, as Wood says (l. c., speaking of the pine), “something sluttish.” But Higginson says they “are very usefull in a house, and ... burne as cleere as a torch.”—New-Eng. Plantation, l. c., p. 122.
[221] Larix Americana, Michx. (Larch; “taccamahac,” Cutler; tamarack; hackmatack.) “Groundsels, made of larch-tree, will never rot; and the longer it lyes, the harder it growes, that you may almost drive a nail into a bar of iron as easily as into that.”—Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 68. “The turpentine that issueth from the cones of the larch-tree (which comes nearest of any to the right turpentine) is singularly good to heal wounds, and to draw out the malice (or thorn, as Helmont phrases it) of any ach; rubbing the place therewith, and throwing upon it the powder of sage-leaves.”—Ibid., p. 66.
[222] Abies nigra, Poir. (black or double spruce), and probably also A. alba, Michx. (white or single spruce). “At Pascataway there is now a spruce-tree, brought down to the water-side by our mass-men, of an incredible bigness, and so long that no skipper durst ever yet adventure to ship it; but there it lyes and rots.”—Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 67.
[223] Abies Canadensis (L.), Michx. (hemlock spruce). Beside the coniferous trees here set down, our author mentions in his Voyages (p. 67) “the white cedar, ... a stately tree, and is taken by some to be tamarisk.” This, which is probably our white cedar (Cupressus thyoides, L.), he says “the English saw into boards to floor their rooms; for which purpose it is excellent, long-lasting, and wears very smooth and white. Likewise they make shingles to cover their houses with, instead of tyle. It will never warp.” Wood (New-Eng. Prospect, chap. v.) makes mention of a “cedar-tree, ... a tree of no great growth; not bearing above a foot and a half, at the most; neither is it very high.... This wood is more desired for ornament than substance; being of colour red and white, like eugh; smelling as sweet as juniper. It is commonly used for ceiling of houses, and making of chests, boxes, and staves.” This seems likely to have been the American Arbor vitæ (Thya occidentalis, L.); also called white-cedar.—Compare Emerson, Trees and Shrubs of Mass., pp. 96, 100. For mention of the juniper, [see ante, p. 49].
[224] [See p. 81]; and [ante, p. 54].
[225] Sassafras officinale, Nees. “This tree growes not beyond Black Point, eastward.”—Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 68. Michaux (Sylva, vol. ii. p. 144) says, “The neighbourhood of Portsmouth ... may be assumed as one of the extreme points at which it is found towards the north-east;” but, according to Mr. Emerson (Trees and Shrubs of Mass., p. 322), it is “found as far north as Canada,” though ... “there a small tree.”
[226] Vaccinium macrocarpum, Ait. Our author seems not to have known the European cranberry (V. oxycoccus, L., the marish-wortes, or fenne-berries, of Gerard, p. 1419); which is also found in our cold bogs, especially upon mountains. This is called by Sir W. J. Hooker (Br. Fl., vol. i. p. 178), “far superior to the foreign V. macrocarpon;” but, from Gerard’s account, it should appear that it was formerly much less thought of in England than was ours (according to Josselyn) here, by both Indians and English. Linnæus speaks of the European fruit in much the same way, in 1737, in his Flora of Lapland, where he says, “Baccæ hæ a Lapponibus in usum cibarium non vocantur, nec facile ab aliis nationibus, cum nimis acidæ sint” (Fl. Lapp., p. 145): but corrects this in a paper on the esculent plants of Sweden, in 1752; asking, not without animation, “Harum vero cum saccharo præparata gelatina, quid in mensis nostris jucundius?” (Amæn. Acad., t. iii. p. 86.) Our American cranberry was probably the “sasemineash—another sharp, cooling fruit, growing in fresh waters all the winter; excellent in conserve against fevers”—of R. Williams, Key, l. c., p. 221.—Compare Masimin, rendered [fruits] “rouges petits.”—Rasles’ Dict., Abnaki, l. c., p. 460.
[227] Wood says the “vines afford great store of grapes, which are very big, both for the grape and cluster; sweet and good. These be of two sorts,—red and white. There is likewise a smaller kind of grape which groweth in the islands” (that is, of Massachusetts Bay), “which is sooner ripe, and more delectable; so that there is no known reason why as good wine may not be made in those parts, as well as Bordeaux in France; being under the same degree.”—New-Eng. Prospect, chap. v. “Vines,” says Mr. Graves (in New-Eng. Plantation, Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 124) “doe grow here, plentifully laden with the biggest grapes that ever I saw. Some I have seene foure inches about.”—“Our Governour,” adds Higginson, “hath already planted a vineyard, with great hope of encrease.”—New-England’s Plantation, l. c., p. 119. Vitis Labrusca, L. (fox-grape),—for some principal varieties of which, see Emerson, l. c., p. 468,—furnished, probably, most of the sorts known favorably to the first settlers; but V. æstivalis, Michx. (summer grape), also occurs on our seaboard.
[228] Pyrola, L., emend. (Gerard, p. 408). All but one of our species are common also to Europe.
[229] Goodyera pubescens (Willd.), R. Br., is plainly meant by the author; and the common name of the plant—rattlesnake plantain—still preserves the memory of its supposed virtues as a wound-herb. It seems, by the next page, that Josselyn tried to carry living specimens to England; but they “perished at sea.” The putting this among the Pyrolæ (as if by some confusion of Goodyera with Chimophila maculata) was a bad mistake.