Ikfo^nglairtrs Parities. 123 



2. 



This .Plant was brought to me by a neighbour, who 

 (wandering in the Woods to find out his ftrayed Cattle,) 

 loft himfelf [69] for two Dayes, being as he ghefied 

 eight or ten Miles from the Sea-fide. The Root was 

 pretty thick and black, having a number of fmall black 

 firings growing from it, the ftalks of the Leaves about a 

 handful long, the Leaves were round and as big as a 

 Silver five Shilling piece, of a fap or dark green Colour, 

 with a line or ribb as black as Jeat round the Circumfer- 

 ence, from whence came black lines or ribs at equal 

 diftance, all of them meeting in a black fpot in the Center. 1 



1 See p. 55 ; where the author refers to his figures of two kinds of " Pyrola" 

 of which this must be one. The Voyages (p. 202) also make mention of an 

 adventure of a neighhor of Josselyn's, who, " rashly wandering out after some 

 stray'd cattle, lost his way; and coming, as we conceived by his Relation, near to 

 the head-spring of some of the branches of Black-Point River or Saco River, light 

 into a tract, of land, for God knows how many miles, full of delfes and dingles and 

 dangerous precipices, rocks, and inextricable difficulties, which did justly daunt, 

 yea, quite deter him from endeavouring to pass any further." And this account 

 may quite possibly relate to the same occasion of our author's getting acquainted 

 with his "elegant plant." Plukenet (Amalth., p. 94; Phytogr., tab. 2S7, f. 5) 

 mistakenly refers Josselyn's " sufficiently unhappy figure " to his Filix Hemionitis 

 dicia Maderensis ; which is Adianium reniforme, L. 



