Note 213 — {41} Fifthly, Of Plants.

See also Voyages, p. 72. Our author is the earliest authority that I have met with for this name; and his plant, which is placed among those “proper to the country,” may very well be what has long been called sweet-fern in New England,—Comptonia asplenifolia (L.) Ait.; still used in “molasses beer,” and medicinal in the way mentioned.—Emerson, Trees and Shrubs of Mass., p. 226.