Note 186 — {41} Fifthly, Of Plants.

Portulaca oleracea, L. (Gerard, p. 521). “In cornfields. It is eaten as a pot-herb, and esteemed by some as little inferior to asparagus.”—Cutler; Account of Indigenous Vegetables (1785), l. c., p. 447. 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. “Purslain, Mr. Glover says, is also very common in Virginia, and troublesome too, to the tobacco-planters.” Sir Philip Skippon to Ray, Feb. 11, 1675-6, in Ray Society’s Corresp. of John Ray, p. 121. Mr. Nuttall regarded the species as indigenous on the plains of the Missouri; but this plant, “too closely resembling the common purslane,” according to Prof. Gray (Man., p. 64), has been separated as specifically distinct by Dr. Engelmann.