[91] This description is drawn chiefly from a well-prepared specimen belonging to the Philadelphia museum, the tail of which, if we may decide from memory, is somewhat too short.
[92] In these villages, where the grass is fed close, and where much fresh earth is brought up and exposed to the air, is the peculiar habitat of a species of Solanum approaching the S. triflorum of Nuttall, which, he says, occurs as a weed "about the gardens of the Mandans and Minatarees of the Missouri, and in no other situations." It appears to differ from the S. triflorum in being a little hirsute, with flat, runcinate, pinnatifid leaves, and the peduncles alternating with the leaves. The Solanum heterandrum of Pursh, now referred to the new genus Androcera of Nuttall, is also very common, but is not confined, like the plant just mentioned, to the marmot villages. We collected also the Psoralea cuspidata, Ph. P. esculenta, N. P. incana, N. also a species of Hieracium—H. runcinatum. Plant hirsute, leaves all radical, elliptic-oblong, runcinate; scape few-flowered, somewhat compressed, and angular; glands on the hairs of the calix, very small and diaphanous; about one foot high; flower small. Hab. in depressed, grassy situations along the Platte.
[93] Known as Grand Island. It extends from Buffalo County on the west through Hall into Merrick County. The dimensions given in the text are not accurate; it has an average width of only a mile and three-quarters, but is more than fifty miles in length. Frémont described it (1842) as well timbered, fertile, and above high water level; he noted it as the most suitable site on the lower Platte for a military post. See Report of Exploring Expedition to Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842 (Washington, 1845), p. 78. Fort Kearney was established in 1848, in Kearney County, near the upper end of the island.—Ed.
[94] Now Wood River. It rises in Custer County, flows southeast through Dawson and western Buffalo counties, then turns and flows east by northeast to central Hall County, where it empties into the channel of the Platte, which runs north of Grand Island. The timber on its banks, from which it obtained its name, was consumed in building the Union Pacific Railroad.—Ed.
[95] Among other plants collected along the Platte on the 15th and 16th June, are the Cherianthus asper, N., Helianthemum canadense, Atheropogon apludoides, N., Myosotis scorpioides, Pentstemon gracile. N. The Cherianthus asper is intensely bitter in every part, particularly the root, which is used as medicine by the Indians. In depressed and moist places along the river, we observed a species of Plantago, which is manifestly allied to P. eriophora of Wallich, Flor. Ind. p. 423, also to P. attenuata of the same work, p. 422. The base of the scape and leaves is invested with a dense tuft of long fine wool, of a rusty brown colour. Before the plant is taken up this tuft is concealed in the soil, being a little below the surface, but it adheres closely to the dried specimen. Its leaves, which are the size of those of P. lanceolata, are smooth, fine nerved, with a few remote denticulations. Scape slender, exceeding the leaves; bractæas ovate, spike slender, few-flowered—P. attenuata, Bradbury?—James.
[96] See Bradbury, p. 113.—James.
Comment by Ed. See reprint in volume v of our series, p. 123.
[97] For sketch of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, see Franchère's Narrative, in our volume vi, note 4.—Ed.
[98] The Sand Hills begin at about the hundredth meridian, which crosses the Platte in western Dawson County.—Ed.
[99] Argemone alba, a large plant, very distinct from A. mexicana.—James.