138 iJkfo^ntjlantis Haritteg. 
Wild Arrack} 
Night Shade, with the white Flower. 2 
Nettles/tinging, 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 Chcnopodluin, L., and Atriplcx, L., were much confused in 
Josselyn's day; and his wild orach may belong to either. Gerard's wild orach is 
in part Atriplcx patula, L. (p. 326); but the first species to which he gives this 
name (p. 325) is Clienopodium 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 (1785), /. c. Naturalized. 
3 Common stinging-nettle, or great nettle (Gerard, p. 706), — Urtica dioica, 
L. 
4 Field-mallow (Gerard, p. 930), Malva sylvcstris, 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. 
5 " It is but one sort, and that is broad-leaved plantain" (Josselyn's Voyages, 
p. 18S). 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 
