8o |kfo=€nslatrtis Parities. 



[41] Fifthly, Of Plants. 



AND 



I. Of /tick Plants as are common with tis in ENGLAND. 



HEdghog-grafs} 

 Mattweed? 

 Cats-tail? 



1 Gerard by Johnson' p. 17, — Carex jffava, L. ; the first species of this genus 

 indicated in North America, and common also to Europe. There is no doubt of 

 the reference, taking Josselyn's name to be meant for specific, and to refer to 

 Gerard's first figure with the same name. But it is certainly possible that our 

 author had in view only a general reference to Gerard's fourteenth chapter, "Of 

 Hedgehog Grasse," which brings together plants of very different genera ; and, 

 in this case, his name is of little account. Cutler (Account of Indig. Veg., /. c, 

 17S5) mentions three genera of Cyperacece, but not Carex ; nor did he ever pub- 

 lish that description of our true Gramznece " and other native grasses," which, he 

 says (/. c, p. 407), " may be the subject of another paper." The first edition of 

 Bigelow's Florula Bostoniensis (1814) has seven species of Carex, which are in- 

 creased to seventeen in the second edition (1S24) ; the list embracing the most 

 common and conspicuous forms. The genus has since been made an object of 

 special study, and the number of our species, in consequence, greatly increased. 

 A list of Carices of the neighborhood of Boston, published by the present writer 

 in 1841 (Hovey's Mag. Hort.), gives forty-seven species; and Professor Dewey's 

 Report on the Herbaceous Plants of Massachusetts, in 1S40, reckons ninety-one 

 species within the limits of his work. 



2 Johnson's Gerard, p. 42, — English matweed, or helme (the other species 

 being excluded, as not English, by our author's caption) ; which I take to be 

 Calamagrostis arenaria (L.) Roth, of Gray, Man., p. 54S; called sea-matweed 

 in England, and common to Europe and America. But if the author only in- 

 tended to refer to Gerard's "Chapter 34, of Mat-weed," — which is perhaps, on 

 the whole, unlikely, — his name is of no value. 



3 Gerard, p. 46, — Tyfka lalifolia, L., — common to America and Europe. 



