Note 239 — {41} Fifthly, Of Plants.

The importance of this list has been already spoken of. Its value depends on its having been drawn up by a person of familiarity with some of the botanical writers of his day, as part of a botanical treatise; and the (in this case) not unfair presumption that the names cited are meant to be accurate. Mr. A. De Candolle (Geogr. Botanique, vol. ii. p. 746) appears to be unacquainted with any authority for the naturalized plants of the Northern States earlier than the first edition of the Florula of Dr. Bigelow, in 1814. The treatise of Cutler extends this limit to 1785; and that of Josselyn, so far as it goes, to 1672.