Note 144 — {41} Fifthly, Of Plants.

The genus Potentilla, L., in general, is perhaps intended by cinque-foil; and although our author probably confounded the common and variable Potentilla Canadensis, L., with the nearly akin P. reptans and P. verna, L., of Europe, yet the larger part of our New-England species are, with little doubt, common to both continents. What Josselyn referred to Tormentilla, L.,—a genus not now separated from Potentilla,—was probably a state of P. Canadensis, which resembles P. reptans, L., as remarked above (and was, indeed, mistaken for it by Cutler,—l. c., p. 453), as this does Tormentilla reptans, L.