Norsemen’s route from Greenland to Wineland. 159 
Finally Storm’s theory falls to the ground, if not already for other 
reasons, then for the one reason that no Vitis-species grew in Nova 
Scotia. Storm was of opinion that he had procured a couple of evi- 
dences that, on the arrival of Europeans at Nova Scotia in the gee 
century, wild grapes (Vitis Labrusca) grew in the southern parts of the 
country. Contradiction however was raised from the American bota- 
nical side, since as the botanist M. L. FERNALD! expresses it — “so 
far as botanists are definitely informed neither of these plants [i. e. 
Vitis Labrusca and Indian rice or “wild rice” Zizania] is known to be 
indigenous in Nova Scotia.” 
Wild Vitis-species are to be found in New England, but they 
hardly seem to grow further north-east than Passamaquoddy bay, 
and nearly as far as the south-west frontier of New Brunswick. In the 
mountainous interior we cannot assume their going so far north, as we 
know that the foliferous trees in these parts yield to the coniferous 
forest. North of the mountains we again get, in the valley of St. Law- 
rence, a spurt of foliferous trees and Vitis-species, the northern limit of 
which generally is given here as 47° N. lat. 
Solely for botanical reasons one must be able to exclude Nova 
Scotia from the possibility of being Wineland. The same also apper- 
tains to New Brunswick, where M. Е. How ey has suggested searching 
for its position. ; 
In the meantime an attempt has been made from the botanical side 
to cast a perfectly new light on the notion of Wineland. M. L. FER- 
NALD, through his thorough knowledge of the botany of Eastern America, 
maintained the opinion that the Norsemen could not have found wild 
grapes in Nova Scotia. And he went still further in his observations. 
He set up the new and surprising supposition that the Icelandic vinber 
did not mean grapes, but a sort of red currant (Ribes sp.) or Norwegian 
red-wortleberry (Vaccinium Vitis Idea). Fernald supported this sup- 
position partly on the consideration that it was not probable that the 
Norsemen had known grapes at all and partly on a linguistical consi- 
deration, since he draws attention to the fact that the word Vinber, at 
least in later Swedish, has the meaning red-currant, and that we have 
cases like it in other North-european languages. 
If Fernald is correct in his supposition, one need not assume so sout- 
hern a position for the socalled Wineland. His view has, in the mean- 
time, been decisively refuted from the linguistical side, thus by his own 
countryman A. Leroy AnDREws?. There has been no doubt as to the 
saga’s vinber really meaning wild grapes. No more have Fernald’s two 
other assumptions that the “‘selfsown wheat”? should mean sand-oats, 
1M. L. FERNALD: Notes оп the plants of Wineland the Good. »Rhodora«, Vol. 
12. Boston 1910. 
2A. Leroy ANDREWS: Philological Aspects of the “Plants of Wineland the 
Good, Rhodora”, Vol. 15. Boston 1913. 
