[306] Perhaps our little Beach plum (P. maritima) is intended. The wild American Plum-tree is probably not a native of Massachusetts, although it was early cultivated by the aborigines and settlers.
[307] (Sassafras officinale.)
[308] The Ginseng (Aralia quinquefolia), or the Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis).
[309] In Chapter IX. of this Book (infra, [*94]) Morton again refers to the growth of hemp in New England, as evidence of the fertility of the soil. He declares “that it shewteth up to be tenne foote high and tenne foote and a halfe.” Thomas Wiggin, also, in writing of New England in November, 1632, says: “As good hempe and fflax as in any parte of the world, growes there naturally.” (III. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. viii. p. 322.) Hemp, however, is not native to New England or America. That spoken of must have been grown from seed brought over by the colonists. Morton may have seen it growing in garden soil at Plymouth and Wessagusset, but that any field of it ever reached a height of ten or ten and a half feet in eastern Massachusetts is very questionable.
[310] Professor Gray of Harvard University has furnished me the following note on this chapter:—
“Unlike Josselyn, the author evidently was not an herbalist, and wrote at random. His pot-marjoram, thyme and balm, though not to be specifically identified, and none of them of the same species as in England, must be represented by our American pennyroyal (Hedeoma pulegioides), a native mint (Mentha borealis), wild basil (Pycnanthemum), and a species of Monarda, sometimes called balm, all sweet herbs of the New England coast. Alexander is hardly to be guessed. Angelica as a genus occurs here, but not the officinal species. Wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) was probably in view. Purslane is interesting in this connection, adding as it does to the probability that this plant was in the country before the settlement. There are no Anniseeds in New England, and it is impossible to guess what the author meant. It was probably a random statement founded on nothing in particular. The Honeysuckles were doubtless the two species of Azalea to which the name is still applied.” Wood also says (Prospect, pp. 11, 12), “There is likewise growing all manner of Hearbes for meate and medicine, and not only in planted Gardens, but in the woods, without either the art or helpe of man, as sweete Marjoram, Purselane, Sorrell, Peneriall, Yarrow, Myrtle, Saxifarilla, Bayes, &c.” See also Mr. Tuckerman’s introductory matter and notes, in his edition of New England’s Rarities [1865], and Professor Gray’s chapter (vol. i. ch. ii.) on the Flora of Boston and vicinity, and the changes it has undergone, in the Memorial History of Boston.
[311] For the greater part of the notes to this chapter, and for all those of a technical character, I am indebted to Mr. William Brewster, of Cambridge. To his notes I have added a few references to, and extracts from, other early works more or less contemporaneous with the New Canaan.
[312] Probably the Whistling Swan (Cygnus Americanus), now a rare visitor to New England. Wood, also, in his poetical enumeration of birds and fowls (Prospect, p. 23), speaks of
“The Silver Swan that tunes her mournfull breath,