Note 207 — {41} Fifthly, Of Plants.

“French beans; or, rather, American beans. The herbalists call them kidney-beans, from their shape and effects; for they strengthen the kidneys. They are variegated much,—some being bigger, a great deal, than others; some white, black, red, yellow, blue, spotted: besides your Bonivis, and Calavances, and the kidney-bean that is proper to Ronoake. But these are brought into the country: the other are natural to the climate.”—Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 73-4. R. Williams (Key, l. c., p. 208) gives manusquussedash as the Indian word for beans. Cornuti (whose book, indeed, is not confined to Canadian plants; though, on the other hand, he was sometimes ill informed of the true locality of his specimens; as in the case of Asclepias Cornuti, Decsne, which he published as A. Syriaca) figures and describes, at pp. 184-5, Phaseolus multiflorus, L.; and this may possibly have been raised from seeds procured by French missionaries from the Canadian savages: but P. vulgaris, L., our well-known bush-bean, is doubtless what Josselyn has mainly in view, as cultivated by the native Americans.