166 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
SOME PLANT-NAMES OF THE MADAWASKA ACADIANS.' 
M. L. FERNALD. 
A LARGE portion of northern Maine and New Brunswick, and 
especially the region drained by the “ upper” St. John — i. e. from the 
Grand Falls up river eighty miles to the mouth of the Allaguash — was 
long ago settled by Acadians. These people were largely those who 
came up the St. John aíter the pathetic expulsion of 1755 and first 
settled at the mouth of the Madawaska river. For a century and a 
half they have passed their simple out-door lives in comparative isola- 
tion. Travelling, as he has, principally in various forms of bateaux, 
the “canoe” and the “ pirogue ” or * dug-out," and depending largely 
upon fish and game for food, and upon native plants for both food and 
medicines, almost every * Madawaskan " has an intimate aquaintance 
with the common plants about him. 
During two visits in this, to me, the most fascinating section of New 
England, I have been struck by this general familiarity with the plants 
and their uses. Ordinarily the temptation to spend all the available 
time exploring the fertile intervales and the wonderful river-beaches 
with their seemingly endless profusion of novelties has forced me to 
regard the collection of local plant-lore as of secondary importance. 
During the past June, however, it was my privilege to ride from 
Ashland to Fort Kent on the “mail stage,” a one-seated buggy so 
loaded with baggage and express packages for “ up-river," that after I 
had secured my seat, other applicants were turned away by the driver's 
reply, “ Can bring him no more passengére: got some enough to-day 
already." This genial driver, with his delightful Madawaska English, 
is the best company imaginable for a long drive, especially if one is 
looking for information about the plants along his portion of the mail- 
route — the twenty-six miles from Ashland to the hill-top in Winter- 
ville. For an hour after I discovered what a mine of information he 
was, the good-natured driver and I exchanged Madawaska and Yankee 
plant-names. When we reached Portage Lake, however, he apparently 
decided that a little more crowding was preferable to being ** worked ” 
by me. At any rate, for the next eighteen miles I dangled both feet 
near the wheels, and the driver became so absorbed in the Evangeline 
1 These notes were presented at a recent meeting of the Josselyn Botanical 
Society of Maine (1898), as part of the report of the Committee on Plant-Lore. 
