THE WESTERN COUNTRY 273 



soon banish from many houses in the mountains the 

 foreign tea which is now become cheaper. The use 

 of tea is everywhere quite common. 



Besides the elsewhere commonly known sorts of 

 wild American grape-vines, there is found on the lower 

 sandy banks of the Ohio a particular vine, of a squat, 

 bushy stem, which bears small, round, black, and sweet 

 berries, and has been observed nowhere else by me. 

 Ginseng and both varieties of the snake-root occur in 

 plenty and are industriously gathered. Of other 

 medicinal plants there are found the Collinsonia, 

 Veronica virginica, Lobelia syphilitica, Aralia race- 

 mosa, nudicaulis, Spircea trifoliata, Actaa racemosa, 

 Asclepias tuberosa, Aristolochia frutescens, &c, and 

 numberless others which I have cited elsewhere in a 

 list of North American sanative remedies. What with 

 our short stay at a season already advanced, the list 

 of the remaining plants met with in this region would 

 be too uncertain and insignificant to be given place 

 here. We found only a few autumn plants in bloom 

 and those well-known ; but spring and summer in the 

 mountains and swamps of this western country would 

 certainly afford a rich harvest, not only of rare plants 

 but of those unknown. Among other things these 

 forests would supply many new contributions to the 

 order of mushrooms, of which uncommonly large 

 specimens are sometimes found. I saw a white Lyco- 

 perdon, which weighed two and a quarter pounds, and 

 was in diameter a foot and eight inches. Extraordi- 

 narily large specimens of Boletus parasiticus also occur. 



Fruit is still a rarity, here as well as throughout the 

 mountains. Near to the Fort was an orchard, planted 

 by the English garrison but since wholly neglected, 

 18 



