LAWSON NOTES ON SOME NOVA SCOTIAN PLANTS. 177 



Halifax, Jan. 8th, 1876. 

 My dear Sir, — 



According to promise, I to-day called upon Mr. Barron and Mr. Hutton 

 about the "Green Bushes." Mr. Barron says that mine is the only specimen 

 of native Rhododendron maximum that he has ever seen, but that, about 

 ten years ago, the late Colonel Chearnley described a plant which the 

 Indians had made known to him, and which, from an imported specimen 

 in his garden, he (Mr. B.) knew must be Rhododendron maximum. 



Mr. Hntton said that the late Colonel Chearnley brought him, ten or 

 twelve years ago, not a plant but a branch, and asked him its name. 

 He told him it was a Rhododendron, but did not know the variety, as he 

 had then not seen the " Rhododendron maximum." 



I am, my dear Sir, yours truly, 



Robt. Morrow. 



Dr. Lawson, &c, &c. 



To Peter Jack, Esq., 



Dear Sir, — 



My knowledge of these bushes goes back as far as thirty-five years. 

 When a boy at my grandfather's in Upper Musquodoboit, old Peter Cope 

 and his Squaw Molly, came to our house one night for lodgings, having 

 just come through the woods from Sheet Harbor. They brought with 

 them some very fine branches of these green bushes, and, it being winter, 

 the green leaves were new to us ; they said that they had found them on 

 their way, that quite a number of the bushes were growing in one place 

 only, but appeared averse to describing the locality. They remained at 

 my grandfather's over night, received two pork hams, and left before 

 daylight, leaving us the green branches. Shortly after that I moved to 

 Halifax, and by degrees forgot the ham and bush story. Coming to 

 Sheet Harbor about eighteen years ago, and finding the descendants of 

 the old Copes here, the pork and green bush vision of my youth was 

 revived. I found that most of the Indians knew the whereabouts of the 

 bushes, but no white man that I could find had ever seen them, and but 

 few had ever heard of their existence, though I think that some old white 

 hunters from Musquodoboit had been to them. I determined to see them, 

 and induced Joe Paul and Peter Francis, (Indians who still live here) 

 to guide me to them in the winter of 1858. At that time there were some 

 twelve or fifteen bushes visible above about a foot of snow, the largest 

 being about four feet high ; they pointed out dead stalks of what they 

 said had been green bushes, some of these were about seven or eight feet 

 high, and of four inches diameter at the ground ; these they said, had, when 

 green, borne white flowers in summer, but did not speak of the small 

 ones bearing flowers. At that time I brought several specimens to the 

 Harbor, and showed the locality of them to many of our loggers. The 

 Indians took Captain Chearnley to the ground about ten years ago, and 

 told me that the Captain had taken some to Halifax to plant in his 



