72 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tion of the original ' puccoon,' as suggested by Bartlett. ' Hickory ' is 

 the Anglicized ending of the Algonquin word powcohicora which meant 

 a dish compounded of the kernel of the hickory nut, without reference 

 to the tree itself. Persimmon, sassafras, papaw, catalpa, pipsissewa, 

 pecan, chinquapin, cohosh, maracock (passion flower), kinnikinnik, 

 and others are all more or less garbled forms of aboriginal names. 

 Certain species became known by names suggested from their early 

 association with certain uses or from various peculiarities and proper- 

 ties. Rattlesnake-root and rattlesnake-plantain were greatly esteemed 

 by the native peoples as antidotes for the poison of the reptile. A 

 number of different plants bear the name of 'snake-root/ all of them 

 with supposed virtues in curing the bites of serpents. One of them, 

 the Virginia snake-root (Aristolochia Serpentaria), figures in Gerarde's 

 ' Herbal.' " There's the Snake-Root," says Beverley, " so much admired 

 in England for a Cordial, and for being a great Antidote in all Pesti- 

 lential Distempers." A ' swamp-root ' was very early used by the 

 settlers in Virginia for the fever and ague, and the virtues of some 

 plant bearing this name are still exploited, at least in the advertisements 

 of quack doctors. The old chroniclers of America were profound be- 

 lievers in ' simples,' and the early accounts of the country set forth, 

 at considerable length, the medicinal value of various plants. Josselyn, 

 in ' New England's Rarities Discovered,' is a mine of information in 

 this respect. Uses, other than medicinal, have given rise to certain 

 local names. The candle-berry tree — the sweet bay or myrtle of Caro- 

 lina (Myrica) — was so called from the use of its wax-like berries in the 

 making of candles by the settlers. " If an Accident puts a Candle out, 

 it yields a pleasant Fragrancy to all that are in the Room; insomuch, 

 that nice People often put them out, on purpose to have the Incense 

 of the expiring Snuff." 



Such names as squaw-root, papoose root, Seneca snake-root, bow- 

 man's root, Osage orange, arrowwood, Indian turnip, and the like, 

 have a decided aboriginal flavor and probably hold a story quite as 

 fascinating as any in the Anglo Saxon lineage. Dim pictures of the 

 life of this vanished people will rise before the mind with many of 

 these plant names. The beautiful native orchids of the genus Cypri- 

 pedium that grow in remote woodland places, are called by their Indian 

 name of ' moccasin flower ' quite as often as by that which allies them 

 to the old world history of plants and men. In Gray's Manual there 

 is a short sentence that to me has a peculiar and indefinable charm, 

 where wild tobacco is spoken of as occurring in ' old fields from New 

 York westward and southward: a relic of cultivation by the Indians.' 

 What a picture in this brief statement of wigwams in the ancient woods, 

 or in sun-lit clearings, with Indian women hoeing among their maize, 

 squashes, and tobacco ! 



The effort of the early colonists to give familiar titles to the objects 



