Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1910-06-07
ROMANCE OF LEFT
Harvard Botanist Skaters Pref
ty Story About Landing
of Norsemen.
Historians Have Long Disputed a. to
Whether Decentralization Was Near
Enough to Massachusetts to
Warrant Placing Of Statue.

Boston.-A wild cranberry has shat.
tered all the pretty romances about
Left. the son Of Eric, landing his
brawny Norsemen in Boston bay or
the Bay of Fundy. or anywhere nearer
to US than north of the st. Lawrence.
Historians have disputed loud and
long as to whether or not Left disem-
barked near enough to Massachusetts
to warrant the placing OF his statue
on Commonwealth avenue, and as to
whether or not he touched the Amer
lean coast at all. 1t remained for q
botanist to settle the controversy.
Prof. NJ. l.. Fernald of the Gray
herbarium, Harvard university, was
drawn into the question quite by ac-
cident. His conclusions are printed
In recent number of Rhodora, the
journal of the New England Botanical
club. They are in part as follows:
THE writer was recently asked for
photographs taken in eastern Canada
of the wild grape and of the wild rice
to be used as evidence that the early
Norsemen had made settlement in
Nova Scotia. but he was forced to
reply that, so far as botanists are
definitely informed, neither of these
plants Is known to be Indigenous in
Nova Scotia.
From this simple incident it be-
came apparent that much Of the EVIL
dence that the Norsemen had landed
about the year 1000 upon the coast of
Nova Scotia or Of New England is
found in the statement that they dis
covered wild rice or Indian corn or
grapes
"Vinland has been located at various
points on the coast of southern New
England and Nova Scotia, near the
northern limits Of the range Of wild
grapes. A search of botanical wri-
tfngs from the earliest herbals to the
latest publications upon the colloquiai
names of plants In Scandinavia and
Great Britain fails to reveal any use
of either the name 'vinber' or wine.
berry for the grape.
But. on the other hand, in the more
northern countries of Europe at the
present day. the names 'vinber' and
'wine-berry' are still used as folk
names for some of the identical wild
fruits which bore those names in the
middle ages.
1T seem highly improbable. then.
that the grape should have been
familiar. at least from personal ex-
perience. to the early Norsemen who
sailed from Iceland and Greenland to
the western continent. And, in view
of the fact that the true grape is
called in Scandinavian vindrufva, it
is not likely that the Norsemen, i.
they knew this foreign fruit at all.
would have applied to it the name
vinber. when they already used the
latter name for common and very
different wild fruit of Norway.
Prior and Britten and Holland tell
us that the red current is still known
In the northern countries of England
and of Scotland as 'wine-berry, and
the balck currant Is also called In
northern Scotland 'wine-berry.' The
use Of currants in making wine,
common practise in New England,
was also known to the Morse. Swedes,
Russians. Germans. French. English
and other northern peoples.
Without question. the 'vinber' of
the early Morse was either the red or
black currant or the mountain cram
berry. The 'selfgrown wheat was
long interpreted as Indian corn, but
in recent years the theory advanced
by Schubeler has been generally
adopted. that the wheat seen by the
Norsemen in Vinland was the Amer.
lean wild rice.
1T now remains only to determine
our representative of the Scandina-
Wan white birch. This Is obviously
the canoe birch. Thus 1t will be seen,
that the three plants which have
been most depended upon in at
tempts to locate Wineland the Good.
instead Of being the grape, the In
dian corn or wild rice. and the maple
(some of which species, by their
known distribution. exclude from
consideration all coastal regions
north Of the maritime provinces) are
in reality the mountain cranberry or
possibly one of the native currants.
the strand wheat and the canoe
birch. And. although the canoe
birch extends very locally southwark
on the coast to Long Island sound.
the mountain cranberry to Essex
county, Massachusetts. and the
strand wheat to the Isles of Shoals,
the area Of their greatest abundance
Is from the lower st. Lawrence river
along the coast of I.ahra.