THE FLORA»OF COLONIAL DAYS. 79 



Here are also abundance of other sweet herbs delightful 

 to the smell, whose names we know not, and plenty of 

 single damask roses, very sweet, and two kinds of herbs 

 that bear two kinds of flowers, very sweet, which they 

 say are as good to make cordage or cloth as any hemp or 

 flax we have. Excellent vines are here up and down in 

 the woods. Our Governor hath already planted a vine- 

 yard, with great hope of increase. Also mulberries, 

 plums, raspberries, currants, chestnuts, filberts, walnuts, 

 small nuts, hurtleberries and haws of white thorn near as 

 good as our cherries in England ; they grow in plenty 

 here. For wood, there is no better in the world, I think, 

 here being four sorts of oak, differing both in the leaf, 

 timber and color, all excellent good. There is also good 

 ash, elm, willow, birch, beech, sassafras, juniper, cypress, 

 cedar, spruce, pines and fir that will yield abundance of 

 turpentine, pitch, tar, masts, and other materials for 

 building both of ships and houses. Also here are sumach 

 trees that are good for dyeing and tanning of leather ; 

 likewise such trees yield a precious gum called white 

 benjamin that they say is excellent for perfumes. Also 

 here be divers roots and berries wherewith the Indians 

 dye excellent holding colors that no rain or washing can 

 alter." The carvell of which Mr. Higginson speaks is 

 chervil or sweet cicely {Osmorrhiza longistylis), and was 

 found by Dr. Charles Pickering in a rocky, precipitous 

 place at " Paradise," North Salem, possibly the spot where 

 it was seen by INIr. Higginson. The mulberry, flowering 

 raspberry (Huhiis odoratus) , still flourishes in "The Great 

 Pastures." 



Ill this same year, 1629, William Wood arrived in New 

 England, but he lived principally in the Plymouth colony. 

 He writes of the trees : " An ash difierent from the ash 

 of England, being brittle and good for little, ever trera- 



