University of Virginia Library

[Lewis:]

Tuesday February 11th. 1806.

This morning Sergt. Gass Reubin Fields and Thompson
passed the Netul opposite to us on a hunting expedition. sent
Sergt. Pryor with a party of four men to bring Gibson to the
fort. also sent Colter and Wiser to the Salt works to carry on
the business with Joseph Fields; as Bratton had been sick we
desired him to return to the Fort also if he thought proper;
ho[we]ver in the event of his not coming Wiser was directed
to return.

There is a shrub which grows commonly in this neighbourhood
which is precisely the same with that in Virginia sometimes
called the quill-wood. also another which grows near
the water in somewhat moist grounds & rises to the hight of 5
or 6 feet with a large, peteolate spreading, plane, crenate and
somewhat woolly leaf like the rose raspberry. it is much
branched the bark of a redish brown colour and is covered
with a number of short hooked thorns which renders it extreemly
disagreeable to pass among; it dose no[t] cast it's
foliage untill about the 1st of December.[32] this is also the case
with the black alder. The[re] is also found in this neighbourhood
an evergreen shrub which I take to be another variety of
the Shallun and that discribed under that name in mistake on

the 26th. of January. this shrub rises to the hight of from
four to five feet, the stem simple branching, defuse and much
branched. the bark is of a redish dark brown, that of the
mane stem is somewhat rough while that of the boughs is
smooth. the leaves are petiolate the petiole 1/10 of an inch long;
oblong, obtuse at the apex and accute angular at the insertion
of the petiole; 3/4 of an inch in length and 3/8th. in width; convex,
somewhat revolute, serrate, smoth and of a paler green
than the evergreens usually are. they are also opposite and
ascending. the fruit is a small deep perple berry like the common
huckleberry of a pleasent flavor. they are s[e]perately
scattered & attatched to the small boughs by short peduncles.
the natives eat this berry when ripe but seldom collect it in
such quantities as to dry it for winter uce.