18 PROGRESS OF BOTANY 



in the year 1635, entitled Canadensium Plantarum aliarumque 

 nondum editarum Historia ; by a French botanist, named Jac. 

 Cornutus. This author, it is believed, was never in America ; 

 but described the plants from specimens sent to him from Canada. 



The person who next treated of the plants of this region, is be- 

 lieved to have been John Josselyx, an Englishman, who resided 

 in Massachusetts for some years, (1633 to 1674,) and in 1672, 

 published a work entitled New England's Rarities, discovered in 

 birds, fishes, serpents, and plants of that country. This book is 

 referred to in some of Peter Collinson's letters to John Bar- 

 tram. The author seems to have been rather prone to the mar- 

 vellous in his statements, and to have laboured under some of the 

 old vulgar prejudices respecting the supposed transmutation of 

 plants. He informs us that " some frogs, when they sit upon their 

 breech, are a foot high;" and he furthermore alleges, that "Barley 

 frequently degenerates into Oats"!* 



The next botanist in the order of time, who noticed our plants, 

 was the Rev. John Banister, who, "in 1680, transmitted to Mr. 

 Ray, a Catalogue of Plants observed by him in Virginia. He 

 drew with his own hand figures of the rarer species. He fell a 

 victim to his favourite pursuit ; for in one of his botanical excur- 

 sions, while clambering the rocks, he fell and was killed."f 



About the year 1730, John Bartram, who, from his youth 

 up, had been passionately fond of Natural History and especially 

 if Botany, began to make collections of American plants and 

 seeds, for his friend Peter Collinson, of London, and other cor- 

 respondents. He probably detected more undescribed plants than 

 any of his contemporaries in our country. " He was, perhaps, the 

 first Anglo-American who conceived the idea of establishing a 

 Botanic Garden for the reception and cultivation of the various 

 vegetables, natives of the country, as well as exotics, and of tra- 

 velling for the discovery and acquisition of them."! 



* This strange phantasy once so prevalent among the unreflecting tillers of 

 the soil has been materially curtailed, or modified, in our own times ; for, at the 

 present day, the most credulous advocates of the doctrine only contend that 

 Wheat is sometimes transformed into Bromus, or Cheat. 



j- Banister is called by Mr. Rat, in his Historia Plantarum, " eruditissimus Vir 

 et consummatissimus Botanicus." Many of his descendants, it is said, are still 

 living in Virginia. See Barton's Med. and Phys. Journal, vol. ii. 



+ The Bartram Botanic Garden, (established in or about the year 1730,) is 

 most eligibly and beautifully situated, on the right bank of the river Schuylkill, 

 a short distance below the city of Philadelphia. Being the oldest establishment 



