138 |kfo=(£ncjlantrs -Kartttrs. 



Wild Arrack} 



Night Shade, with the white Flower. 2 

 NettlesJIinging, which was the firft Plant taken notice of. 3 

 Mallowes^ 



[86] Plaintain, which the Indians call EngliJJi-Mans Foot, 

 as though produced by their treading. 5 



1 The genera Chenopodium, L., and Atriplex, L., were much confused in 

 Josselyn's day; and his wild orach may belong to either. Gerard's wild orach is 

 in part Atriplex palitla, L. (p. 326) ; but the first species to which he gives this 

 name (p. 325) is Chenopodium polyspermum, L. The latter is a rare, adventive 

 member of our Flora (Gray, /. c, p. 363) ; and the former is, according to Bige- 

 low (Fl. Bost., ed. 3, p. 401), the well-known orach of our salt-marshes : but Dr. 

 Gray now refers this (Man., p. 365) to the nearly allied A. hastata, L. This 

 plant, in either case, is reckoned truly common to both continents. It is possible 

 that Josselyn intended it. 



2 Garden nightshade (Gerard, p. 339) ; Solatium nigrum, L. " Common 

 among rubbish," — Cutler (17S5), /. c. Naturalized. 



3 Common stinging-nettle, or great nettle (Gerard, p. 706), — Urtica dioica, 

 L. 



4 Field-mallow (Gerard, p. 930), Malva sylvestris, L., and wild dwarf-mallow 

 {ibid.), M. rotundifolia, L., are the only sorts likely to have been in view. The 

 latter was, I doubt not, intended ; and the former, adventive only with us, may 

 also have occurred at any period after the settlement. 



6 " It is but one sort, and that is broad-leaved plantain" (Josselyn's Voyages, 

 p. iSS). Broad-leaved plantain (Gerard, p. 419), — Plantago major, L. ; one of 

 the most anciently and widely known of plants, and inhabiting, at present, all the 

 great divisions of the earth. An account, similar to our author's, of the name 

 given to it by the American savages, is found in Kalm's Travels. "Mr. Bartram 

 had found this plant in many places on his travels ; but he did not know whether 

 it was an original American plant, or whether the Europeans had brought it 

 over. This doubt had its rise from the savages (who always had an extensive 

 knowledge of the plants of the country) pretending that this plant never grew 

 here before the arrival of the Europeans. They therefore gave it a name which 

 signifies the Englishman's foot ; for they say, that, where a European had walked, 

 there this plant grew in his footsteps." — Kalm's Travels into North America, by 

 Forster, vol. i. p. 92. But Dr. Pickering considers it possible, that, in North-west 

 America at least, the plantain was introduced by the aborigines (Races of Man, 

 pp. 317, 320) : and, uncertain as this is admitted to be, the old vulgar names of 



