98 Jkto=<£nglaitiJS Parities. 



they ufually are) eaten raw; the Indians fell them to 

 the Englifli for twelve pence the bufhel. 1 



Beech? 



A/A.' 



Quick-beam, or Wild-AJh? 



Coals of Birch pulverized arid wrought with the white of 

 an Egg to a Salve, is a gallant Remedy for dry fcurfy 

 Sores tipon the Shins; and for Bruifed Wotmds and 

 Cuts. 



Birch, white and black; the bark of Birch is ufed by 

 the Indians for bruifed Wounds and Cuts, boyled very 

 tender, and ftampt betwixt two ftones to a Plaifter, and the 

 decoction thereof poured into the Wound; And alfo to 

 fetch the Fire out of Burns and Scalds. 5 



1 Casianea vesca, Gaertn. ; common to Europe and America. Our chestnut 

 is considered to differ from the European only as an American variety of a species 

 common to both continents might be expected to. "The Indians have an art of 

 drying their chestnuts, and so to preserve them in their barns for a dainty all the 

 year." — i?. Williams, I. c. 



2 Neither Wood nor R. Williams makes mention of it. The younger Michaux 

 considered our beech distinct from the European ; but Mr. Nuttall makes it only 

 a variety of it ; while Prof. Gray puts both trees in his list of " very close repre- 

 sentative species." — Statistics, &c, I. c, p. 81. 



3 Fraxinns, L. Our species are peculiar to this continent. I cannot account 

 for Wood's saying, "It is different from the ash of England; being brittle and 

 good for little, so that walnut is used for it." — Nevo-Eng. Prospect, chap. vi. 



4 Sorbus, L. (Gerard, p. 1473). Our mountain-ash (S. Americana, Willd.) is 

 quite near to the quicken, or mountain-ash of the north of Europe.-(5. aucufaria, 

 L.) ; but hardly, perhaps, to be reduced to an American variety of it, as the 

 elder Michaux {Fl. Amer., vol. i. p. 290) proposed. Compare Gray, Statistics, 

 &c, /. c, p. 82. 



6 Except the small white birch (B. fofulifolia, Ait.), which Mr. Spach reduces 

 to a variety of the European B. alba, L., — in which he is sustained by Prof. Gray 

 (Man., p. 411), — and the dwarf-birch (i?. nana, L.) of our alpine regions, all our 



