EARLY INVESTIGATIONS OF NORTH AMERI¬ 
CAN FLORA, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 
TO LINNAEUS AND KALM. 
BY 
H. O. JUEL. 
T 
America is connected with the discovery of »Wineland» 
by Norwegian colonists in Iceland and Greenland about 
the year 1000. In Adam of Bremens Description of 
HE EARLIEST RECORD OF PLANTS IN NORTH 
the northern Islands, written about 1070, and in two Icelandic 
tales, the Saga of Erik the Red, and the Saga of Thorfinn 
Karlsefni, written in the 14th century, it is related that some 
Norwegian colonists in Greenland sailed to a new land, where 
they found vines growing, and naturally growing wheatfields, and 
trees called Masur. This land was called Wineland. There has 
been some discrepancy both with regard to the site of Wineland 
and the identification of these plants. But if Steensby is right 
in his opinion that Wineland lay on the right shore of the St. 
Lawrence River, it seems most likely that the vines were Vitis 
labrusca L. or. V. riparia Michx, and the wild wheat Zizania 
aquatica L. The Masur may have been some Betula or Acer d 
1 A. M. Reeves, The finding of Wineland the Good. With phototype plates of the 
vellum mss. of the Sagas. London 1890. — M. L. Fernald, Notes on the plants of Wine- 
land the Good. Rhodora, vol. 12, 1910. — A. L. Andrew, Philological aspects of »the 
plants of Wineland the Good.». Rhodora, vol. 15, 1913. — D. Bruun, The Icelandic 
colonization of Greenland and the finding of Wineland. Meddelelser om Grönland, Bd. 5 7 > 
1918. — H. P. Steensby, The Norsemen’s route from Greenland to Wineland. Meddel. 
om Grönl., Bd. 57, 1918 (also in Ymer, årg. 39, 1919). 
