154 
CAPE COD. 
indeed are the various succulent plants v/hich grow on 
the beach but such beds of beets and turnips, sprung 
originally from seeds which perhaps were cast on the 
waters for this end, though we do not know the Frank¬ 
lin which they came out of ? In ancient times some Mr. 
Bell (?) was sailing this way in his ark with seeds of 
rocket, saltwort, sandwort, beach-grass, samphire, bay- 
berry, poverty-grass, &c., all nicely labelled with direc¬ 
tions, intending to establish a nursery somewhere; and 
did not a nursery get established, though he thought that 
he had failed ? 
About the light-house I observed in the summer the 
pretty Polygala polygama^ spreading ray-wise flat on the 
ground, white pasture thistles (^Girsium pumilum)^ and 
amid the shrubbery the Smilax glauca^ which is commonly 
said not to grow so far north ; near the edge of the banks 
about half a mile southward, the broom crowberry (Em-- 
•petrum Conradii)^ for which Plymouth is the only locality 
in Massachusetts usually named, forms pretty greep 
mounds four or flve feet in diameter by one foot high, —• 
soft, springy beds for the wayfarer. I saw it afterward 
in Provincetown, but prettiest of all the scarlet pimper¬ 
nel, or poor-man’s weather-glass {Anagallis arvensis)^ 
greets you in fair weather on almost every square yard 
of sand. From Yarmouth, I have received the GJirys- 
opsis falcata (golden aster), and Vaccinium stamineum 
(Deerberry or Squaw Huckleberry), with fruit not edible, 
sometimes as large as a cranberry (Sept. 7). 
The Highland Light-house,^ where we were staying, is 
a substantial-looking building of brick, painted white, 
and surmounted by an iron cap. Attached to it is 
the dwelling of the keeper, one story high, also of 
* The light-house has since been rebuilt, and shows a Fresnel light 
