85 



ward Tiickerman, is now available. Josselyu visited 

 New England several times ; when on the longest sojourn, 

 1663-1671, he landed at Boston and soon went to Black 

 Point, Scarborough, Maine, where most of his obser- 

 vations were made. Josselyn was an excellent observer 

 and although his writings are filled with the usual strange 

 stories current in old works upon new and unexplored' 

 countries, they contain the first accounts of any conse- 

 quence regarding the New England flora. This author did 

 not, perhaps, m*ake many observations in Essex County, 

 yet his work contains but few species that do not grow 

 here and its chief value consists in its arrangement and 

 separation of the plants indijijenous from the introduced 

 weeds, thus giving what then appeared to be the plants 

 which came with man or, as he called them, "Such plants as 

 have sprung up since the English planted and kept cattle 

 in New England." This, with the occasional observations 

 by other writers, gives us a fair idea of what plants had 

 established themselves here rather more than two hundred 

 years ago. According to Professor Tuckerman, the next 

 date by which the student may fix the introduction of 

 foreign species is 1783, when the list of plants observed 

 by Rev. Manasseh Cutler, of Ipswich, was published 

 (Mem. Am. Acad. Vol. I). Since that date observations 

 are more frequent and the more recently introduced 

 species can be traced quite accurately. It is also quite 

 probable that plants which at one time were quite common 

 weeds have disappeared altogether. Dr. Cutler mentions 

 the Amarantus known by the common name of " Prince's 

 Feather" or "Love-lies-bleeding," as "amongst rubbish," 

 but to the writer's knowledge it is never met with 

 excepting in old-fashioned gardens. The Hyoscyamus 

 niger and Artemisia Absinthium (Wormwood), spoken of 

 by Dr. Cutler and other earlier writers as common in waste 



