Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club/Volume 6/16

BULLETIN
OF THE
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB.
Vol. VI. ]	New-York, April, 1876.	[ No. 16.

85

§	87.	Notes and Criticisms on Hepaticæ Americanæ Exsiccatæ,
by C. F. Austin.

No. 6.   Plagiochila macrostoma, Sulliv. ═ Pl. interrupta, Nees; an older name.  —  As Lindberg has recently shown (Act. Soc. Sci. Fen. X. p. 504) this plant is hardly a Plagiochila but is nearer to Lophocolea and Chiloscyphus, and somewhat intermediate between them. But, as it does not fit well in either, he proposes to make a new genus, Pedinophyllum, Lindb. of it.

No. 15.   Scapania compacta, Roth. (═ Sc. resupinata, (Dill.) Linn.) var. irrigua.  —  This plant is abundant about the “Lakes” on the Catskill Mountains.  The Var. curta (Scapania curta, Nees.) also occurs there.  There is a small form of Sc. nemorosa, the stems always mixed with those of larger size, which resembles this form of Sc. compacta very much, but is readily distinguished by its areolation being like that of all the forms of Sc. nemorosa, and unlike that of any form of Sc. compacta, (vid. Hook. Brit. Jung., t. 21, ff. 17, 18 & 19.)  Sc. brevicaulis, Tayl., is also a form of this species.

No. 19.   Scapania Bolanderi, Aust. ═ Sc. caudata, Tayl. in Herb.!  I do not know whether the plant has or has not been published under this name.

No. 20.   Scapania Peckii, Aust. ═ Sc. glaucocephala, (Tayl.) Aust., ═ Jungermannia glaucocephala, Tayl. (Lond. Jour. Bot., 1846, p.277)!

86

§

88.

Vegetables cultivated by the American Indians.

— II.

Our first article was intended to prove the existence of aboriginal names for several varieties of cucurbitaceous plants.   In the present we quote several authorities showing through what extent of territory the knowledge particularly of these plants and of beans had extended before the coming of Europeans.  For what is of value in both we are chiefly indebted to the learning and kindness of Dr. J. E. Trumbull, of Hartford.

Cabaça de Vaca landed in Florida in 1528.   Near Tampa Bay he found “maize, beans, and pumpkins, in great plenty.”  In his travel westward through Texas, the Indians supplied him with prickly pears and, occasionally, maize; but after crossing “a great river coming from the north” — which seems to be the Rio Grande — he came into a country whose “inhabitants lived on maize, beans, and pumpkins.”

On Cartier's first visit to Canada, 1534, he found, everywhere, maize — “mil gros comme poix, pareil a celui qui croit au Bresil, dont ils magent au lieu de pain,” — and “ils ont aussi des febues (fêves) qu'ils nomment Sahu.”   The vocabulary appended to the relation of his voyage gives “casconada” as the Indian name for “the seeds of concombres or melons.”  In the “Brief Relation” of his second voyage, 1535-36, mention is made of the use of maize by the Indians, “et de febues et poix, desquels ils ont assez, et aussi gros concombres et aultres fruicts.”  Further up the St. Lawrence, the Indians brought him presents of maize (“gros mil”) and “several great melons.”

Hudson, 1609, when anchored off* the Catskills, bought "ears of Indian corn, pumpkins, and tobacco, and two days after, Sept. 18th, (Tfrodhead p. 30) saw in a house "a great quantity of maize or Indian corn, and beans of the last year's growth ; and there lay near the house for the purpose of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what was growing in the fields.

In Champlains narrative of his earlier voyages (1604-1611), as reprinted in his final edition of 1632, he savs that when coasting eastward from the River Quinibequey (Kennebec), he saw the Indians planting their " bleds d'Inde;" and that "in every hill they put four Brasilian beans (ufebves de Brésil"), which grow of divers colors. As these grow high, they wind about (" s'entrelacent autour") the corn, which rises to the height of tive or six feet, and keep the field clear of weeds." * " We saw also abundance of citrouilles, courges, and tobacco, which they cultivate" (p. 73). Southward, after passing Cape Blanc (Cape Cod), near the port of Mallebarre, he Baw fields of Indian corn in flower, and "plenty of Brasiliau beans (fèves de Brésil), and of citrouilles of several sizes, good to eat (p. 84). At one place the Indians brought him "little citrouilles, the size of one's fist, which we eat in a salad, like cucumbers, and found excellent; and purslane (pourpié) also, wdiich grows plentifully among the Indian corn, and of which the savages make no more account than if it were a noxious weed !" (p. 80.)

Torrey & Gray think Purslane introduced, though possihly indigenous on the Missouri. Prof. Tuckerman, in a note to Josselyn, p. 81 (51 orig.). says of "Wild Purcelaine" (Portulaca olerácea, L.): " Considered to have been introduced here; but our author enables us to carry back the date of its introduction, without reasonable doubt to the first settlement of the country." Prof. Tuckerman puts a certain confidence in Josselyn's botanical knowledge, which he finds difficult to extend to the earlier writers. But in the case of so marked, and to us at least so familiar, a plant as Purslane, we may perhaps accept the repeated testimony to its abundant presence at a very early period. Champlain was half a century before Josselyn; and so was Strachey in Virginia, who names " purselin " among the herbs dispersed through the woods, good for broths and salads" (Travaile into Virginia, p. 120). Sagard also, in 1623 or'24, found the "pourpier, on pourceleine " in the country of the Hurons, and remarked that they made "tres peu d'estat " of it, though it grew " naturellement dans leurs champs labourez, parray le bled et les citrouilles" (Hist, du Canada, 782).

As regards the Indian cultivation of beans, it is impossible from the description given by explorers in the loth century to identify varieties or species, and there exist no wild species in the Eastern United States which would seem to answer the description. It is certain, however, that early in that century, beans were cultivated as far north as the St. Lawrence, that the varieties of American beans observed by the early voyagers (before 1600) were regarded as " proper to the country," and that they were so regarded by the botanists of Europe (e. g. Clusius, and Lobel) ; that the northern Algonquins of New England and the Middle States had at least one, and probably two varieties of climbing (pole) beans. A Massachusetts name for beans was tuppuhquamash, and the corresponding Abnaki, aHeba'kouar,•both apparently derived from a verb meaning 'to twine,' 'to wind about,'and thereby characterizing the plants as climbers. Prof. Tuckerman is inclined to think that Josselyn has mainly in view Phaseolx* vulgaris^L, [JOBS, p. 89, 59 orig.), a plant whose origin is unknown, " but for which in the West "Indies we have old authority (see Gerard's Herbal, late editions), and De Soto (1542) speaks of the " kidney beans cultivated by the aboriginals of Florida " (Pickering's liaees of Mem, p. 396)," (Tuckerman in lit.) Dr. Trumbull thinks the American bean figured and described by Cornuti, pp. 184, 5 could not have been P. multiflorus, L., as the seeds were " subrotundi et nigri."