Sosselgn as a Botanist 15 
and " Prodromus " (1671) are cited by Linnaeus in the 
"Species Plantarum." Moft of them are Southern plants; 
and the few decidedly Northern ones which meet us — as 
Cornns Canaden/is, Uvularia perfoliaia, Trillium ereflum, 
Arum triphyllum, and Adiantum pedatum — are all indi- 
cated, by Bauhin's phrafe, as from Brazil! 
We have nothing illuftrating the Flora of New England 
from Cornuti till JolTelyn. In Virginia, Mr. John Banifter, 
a correfpondent of Ray's, began to botanize probably not 
long after the middle of the feventeenth century. He was 
fucceeded by feveral eminent names ; as Mark Catesby, 
F.R.S. (born 1679), John Clayton, Efq. (born 1685), and 
John Mitchell, M.D., F.R.S. , — a contemporary of the 
other two, — who together gave to the botany of Virginia 
a diftinguifhed luftre; as did Cadwalader Colden, Efq. 
(born 1688), — a feleclion from whofe correfpondence has 
been lately edited by Dr. Gray, — to that of New York; 
John Bartram (born 1701), "American botanift to his 
Britannic Majefly," to that of Pennfylvania; and, fome- 
what later, Alexander Garden, M.D., F.R.S. (born 1728), 
to that of South Carolina. Joffelyn himfelf is, indeed, 
little more than a herbalift; but it is enough that he gets 
beyond that entirely unfcientific character. He certainly 
botanized, and made botanical ufe of Gerard and his other 
authorities. The credit belongs to him of indicating 
feveral genera as new which were fo, and peculiar to the 
American Flora. It may at leaft be faid, that, at the time 
he wrote, there is no reafon to fuppofe that any other 
perfon knew as much as he did of the botany of New 
