HELENIUM AUTUMNALE. — AUTUMN SNEEZEWORT. II5 



Perhaps this fondness of our species for the water-courses 

 is one of the reasons for its wide distribution, as the plant is 

 thus enabled to scatter its seeds on the stream, which is com- 

 pelled to transport them. There are few plants so widely dis- 

 tributed over the United States as this. It does not, indeed, 

 occur in the Portland Catalogue of Maine plants, and it is rare 

 in the New England States, according to Dr. Gray ; but as we 

 reach the New York line we find it to be quite abundant, and it 

 continues to be more or less so all through the Atlantic States 

 down to the Gulf of Mexico. West of the Mississippi it was 

 collected in Texas by Lindheimer, in Arkansas by Lesquereux, 

 in Kansas by Snow, in Nebraska by Aughey, in Iowa by Ar- 

 thur, and in Minnesota by Parry. The writer of this also found 

 it in Colorado, and the botanists of California report it as grow- 

 ing along the greater part of the Pacific slope. This very wide 

 and flourishino; distribution is one of the most remarkable fea- 

 tures in the history of the species. 



Being so easily found, our plant was of course among the 

 earliest discoveries in American botany. Jacob Cornuti, the 

 oldest writer on the plants of this continent, who published a 

 history of the plants of Canada about 1635, refers to the Hclcni- 

 tcm aidumnalc as a sort of yellow Aster. Morrison, who also 

 wrote a history of plants in 1715, mentions it as a sort of 

 ChrysaJithemum ; and it is reported by Alton as having been 

 in cultivation in the Chelsea Garden, near London, in 1729. 

 Since it received its present name from Linnaeus, its nomen- 

 clature has undergone but little change. It varies somewhat in 

 the widely separated localities in which it is found, and this has 

 given rise to a few synonyms, but these are not likely to confuse 

 the student, and are, therefore, hardly worth while recording 

 here. 



Rafinesque says of our plant that it is a tonic, febrifuge, and 

 errhine ; the latter meaning a medicine which is to be used like 

 snuff to induce sneezing. It is from this quality that the 

 Hdeniuvi auiumnale derives its common name of Sneezewort, 



