[260] “Great burre-docke, or clott-burre” (Gerard, p. 809),—Lappa major, Gaertn. “About barns,”—Cutler (1785), l. c.
[261] “White-floured mullein” (Gerard, p. 773),—perhaps Verbascum Lychnitis, L.; which is adventive in some parts of the United States (Gray, Man., p. 283), but is not otherwise known to have made its appearance in New England. Great mullein (V. Thapsus, L.) was “common” in Cutler’s time. The moth-mullein (V. Blattaria, L.) he only knew “by roadsides in Lynn” (l. c., p. 419). Other plants referable to this list of naturalized weeds are “wild sorrel,” [p. 42]; Polygonum Persicaria, p. 43; St. John’s wort, speedwell, chickweed, male fluellin, cat-mint, and clot-bur, [p. 44]; yarrow, and oak of Jerusalem, [p. 46]; pimpernel, and toadflax, [p. 48]; and wild purslain, and woad-waxen, [p. 51]. See also spearmint, and ground-ivy, [p. 89]; and elecampane, celandine, and tansy, [p. 90].
[262] The earliest, almost the only account that we have of the gardens of our fathers, after they had settled themselves in their New England, and had tamed its rugged coasts to obedience to English husbandry. What with their garden beans, and Indian beans, and pease (“as good as ever I eat in England,” says Higginson in 1629); their beets, parsnips, turnips, and carrots (“our turnips, parsnips, and carrots are both bigger and sweeter than is ordinary to be found in England,” says the same reverend writer); their cabbages and asparagus,—both thriving, we are told, exceedingly; their radishes and lettuce; their sorrel, parsley, chervil, and marigold, for pot-herbs; and their sage, thyme, savory of both kinds, clary, anise, fennel, coriander, spearmint, and pennyroyal, for sweet herbs,—not to mention the Indian pompions and melons and squanter-squashes, “and other odde fruits of the country,”—the first-named of which had got to be so well approved among the settlers, when Josselyn wrote in 1672, that what he calls “the ancient New-England standing dish” (we may well call it so now!) was made of them; and, finally, their pleasant, familiar flowers, lavender-cotton and hollyhocks and satin (“we call this herbe, in Norfolke, sattin,” says Gerard; “and, among our women, it is called honestie”) and gillyflowers, which meant pinks as well, and dear English roses, and eglantine,—yes, possibly, hedges of eglantine [(p. 90 note)],—surely the gardens of New England, fifty years after the settlement of the country, were as well stocked as they were a hundred and fifty years after. Nor were the first planters long behindhand in fruit. Even at his first visit, in 1639, our author was treated with “half a score very fair pippins,” from the Governor’s Island in Boston Harbor; though there was then, he says (Voyages, p. 29), “not one apple tree nor pear planted yet in no part of the countrey but upon that island.” But he has a much better account to give in 1671: “The quinces, cherries, damsons, set the dames a work. Marmalad and preserved damsons is to be met with in every house. Our fruit-trees prosper abundantly,—apple-trees, pear-trees, quince-trees, cherry-trees, plum-trees, barberry-trees. I have observed, with admiration, that the kernels sown, or the succors planted, produce as fair and good fruit, without graffing, as the tree from whence they were taken. The countrey is replenished with fair and large orchards. It was affirmed by one Mr. Woolcut (a magistrate in Connecticut Colony), at the Captain’s messe (of which I was), aboard the ship I came home in, that he made five hundred hogsheads of syder out of his own orchard in one year.”—Voyages, p. 189-90. Our barberry-bushes, now so familiar inhabitants of the hedgerows of Eastern New England, should seem from this to have come, with the eglantines, from the gardens of the first settlers. Barberries “are planted in most of our English gardens,” says Gerard.
[263] Portulaca oleracea,; L. β. sativa, L. (garden purslain). The wild variety is also reckoned by our author, in his list of plants, common to us and the Old World (p. 51).
[264] See Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 188.
[265] Vicia Faba, Willd., of which the Windsor bean is a variety. The author compares it, [at p. 56], with kidney-beans (Phaseolus vulgaris, L.), called Indian beans by the first settlers, who had them from the savages, to the advantage of the last-mentioned sort; which probably soon drove the other out of our gardens.—Compare Cobbett’s American Gardener, p. 105.
[266] Gerard, p. 75,—Avena nuda, L.; derived from common oats (A. sativa, L.) according to Link; and also (in Gerard’s time, and even later) in cultivation. It was called pillcorn, or peelcorn, because the grains, when ripe, drop naked from the husks. But is it not possible that our author’s Silpee (comparable with apee, a leaf; toopee, a root; ahpee, a bow, in the Micmac language,— Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. vi., pp. 20, 24) was really the American name of the well-known water-oats, or Canada rice,—Zizania aquatica, L.; the deciduous grains of which are said to afford “a very good meal” (Loudon, Encycl., p. 788), with the qualities of rice?—See Bigel., Fl. Bost., edit. 3, p. 369. This has long been used by our savages; but I have not met with any mention of it in the early writers. The “standing dish in New England” has its interest, if it were really made of Canada rice.
[267] Gerard, p. 680,—Mentha viridis, L. It perhaps soon became naturalized. “In moist ground” (1785).—Cutler, l. c.
[268] Perhaps only an inference of the author’s, from the southern origin of these three shrubs. Lavender also belongs naturally to a warmer climate.
[269] Gerard, p. 1109,—Santolina Chamæ Cyparissus, L.