SCHQPF AMERICAN TRAVELS. 



in bitter spirituous infusions. This tree is distinguished from its rela- 

 tives by its habitat ; it is found only in dry spots in the mountains, 

 and bears more cold than other magnolias. The ripe-seed vessels have 

 a pleasant odor and taste something like the calamus. The unripe 

 fruit blackens the fingers and stains the knife. 



[T, 362-363.] A man met us who was taking to Philadelphia 

 some five hundred pounds of ginseng-roots (Panax quinquefoUum, L,) 

 on two horses. He hoped to make a great profit because throughout 

 the war little of this article was gathered, and it was now demanded 

 in quantity by certain Frenchmen. The hunters collect it incidentally 

 in their wanderings ; in these mountains the plant is still common, but 

 in the lower parts it has pretty well disappeared. It grows in not too 

 rich woods-earth in mountain regions from Canada down to North 

 and South Carolina. Much is brought in to Fort Pitt. Industrious 

 people who went out for the purpose have gathered as much as sixty 

 pounds in one day. Three pound's of the freshly gathered make only 

 one pound of the well dried ; which is sold by the gatherers for one, 

 one and a half, to two shillings, Pensylv. Current, commonly about 

 a shilling sterling. The physicians in America make no use of this 

 root ; and it is an article of trade only with China, where the price is 

 not so high as it was, on account of the great adulteration. All man- 

 ner of similar roots were mixed in. The English take very little of 

 it. The taste of the fresh root is very similar to that of our sweet- 

 wood or liquorice, but is somewhat more aromatick. In these motm- 

 tains also are gathered many pounds of the Senega {Poly gala Sen- 

 ega, L.) and of the Virginia snake-root {Aristolochia Serpent. L.). 



[I, 415-420.] In several excursions beyond the Alleghany we had 

 occasion to observe the goodness and riotous fertility of the soil in its 

 original and undisturbed character. The indigenous plants had a lusty, 

 fat appearance, and they grow vastly stronger and to greater heights 

 than is their habit elsewhere. In a new-made and unmanured garden 

 there stood stalks of the common sun-flower, which were not less than 

 twenty feet high, measured six inches in diameter, and were almost 

 ligneous. The forests were of chestnut, beech, sassafras, tulip-trees or 

 poplars, wild cherry, red maple, sugar maple, black walnut, hickory and 

 its varieties, several sorts of oak, the sour gum, the liquid amber or 

 sweet gum, and other trees known along the coast but here growing 

 still finer and stronger. The forests are for the most part quite clear of 

 undergrowth, which is equally fortunate for the hunter and the trav- 

 eler. We were shown several trees described as of an unknown spe- 

 cies, which appeared quite like the Gleditsia triacanfhos, but had no 

 thorns. Among the somewhat rarer trees are to be reckoned the 

 papaws,* which chiefly grow in moist, rich, black soil, often called 

 after them, "papaw soil." They are slender trees, with a smooth, 



* Annona glabra. Gron. Virg. p. 83. Annona fructu lutescente laevi, &c. Catesby II. 85 ? 



