227 



obtained the name of spice-busli, wild allspice ; and from 

 some fancied virtue, it honorably is possessed of the name of 

 Fever-bush, it maintains itself too, as one of many condi- 

 ments in Spring-beer making, and we have known its use as 

 a bath by infusion for a poisoned skin. Its beauty and the 

 ■ lustre of its leaves we suspect have served to create for itself 

 friends, who in their indi^ criminating admiration attribute 

 cooling and warming properties to its several parts. Cer- 

 tainly no native shrub looks so i)retty rising as it does out 

 of the black muddy soil of its native place of growth, with 

 its roots bathed in the cold spring water in which they de- 

 light. We are however informed by Dr. Cutler that " the 

 Indians esteemed it highly for its medicinal virtues," which 

 may be authority enough with those, Avho esteem Indian 

 curatives as particularly valuable. 



The Snakeweed or American burnet (^Sang-uisorba Cana- 

 densis') with its tall, handsome plumy spike of pure white 

 flowers and its broadly spreading pinnate leaves was con- 

 spicuous in the wetter portions of the meadow, and a few" 

 blossoms of the fringed gentian ( Gentiana crinita') gave evi- 

 dences of the approach of frosts and cold. To Mr. Ann able 

 we feel indebted for a pleasant morning's ramble and for 

 much information concerning the " Simples" of popular use 

 in medicining. 



The Chapel of the Congregational Church having been, 

 generously offered as a place of meeting, at 3 o'clock, P. M. 

 the Institute was called to order by Vice President Russell 

 as Chairman, who opened the meeting with some remarks 

 suggested to him by the time and the occasion. He stood 

 on the spot familiar to the loved and venerated Cutler, who 

 may be considered the Father of New England botany. He 

 had often looked with nmch satisfaction on the portrait sus- 

 pended in the Herbarium room of the Essex Institute, rude 

 in design and unfinished, but yet bearing a resemblance to 

 the lover of plants and forest trees, with which he stored his 



