Lewis: February 13, 1806

Thursday February 13th 1806. The Clatsop left us this morning at 11 A.M.
not any thing transpired during the day worthy of notice. yesterday we
completed the operation of drying the meat, and think we have a sufficient
stock to last us this month. the Indians inform us that we shall have
great abundance of a small fish in March which from their discription must
be the herring. these people have also informed us that one More who
sometimes touches at this place and trades with the natives of this coast,
had on board of his vessel three Cows, and that when he left them he
continued his course along the N. W. coast. I think this strong
circumstancial proof that there is a stettlement of white persons at
Nootka sound or some point to the N. W. of us on the coast.

There is a species of bryer which is common in this neighbourhood of a
green colour which grows most abundant in the rich dry lands near the
watercourses, but is also found in small quantities in the piny lands at a
distance from the watercourses in the former situation the stem is
frequently the size of a man’s finger and rises perpendicularly to the
hight of 4 or 5 feet when it decends in an arch and becomes procumbent or
rests on some neighbouring plants or shrubs; it is simple unbranched and
celindric; in the latter situation it is much smaller and usually
procumbent. the stem is armed with sharp and hooked bryers. the leaf is
peteolate ternate and resembles in shape and appearance that of the perple
raspberry common to the Atlantic states. the fruit is a berry resembling
the black berry in every rispect and is eaten when ripe and much esteemed
by the natives but is not dryed for winter consumption. in the country
about the entrance of the quicksand river I first discovered this bryer.
it groows so abundantly in the fertile valley of Columbia and the Islands
in that part of the river that the country near the river is almost
impenitrable in many places. the briary bush with a wide leaf is also one
of it’s ascociates. the green bryer retains it’s foliage and verdure
untill late in December.There are also two species of firn which
are common to this country beside that formerly discribed of which the
natives eat the roots. these from their disparity in point of size I shall
designate the large and small firn. both species continue green all
winter.The large farn, rises to the height of 3 or four feet the
stem is a common footstalk or rib which proceedes immediately from the
radix wich is somewhat flat on two sides about the size of a man’s arm and
covered with innumerable black coarce capillary radicles which issue from
every pat of it’s surface; one of those roots or a collected bed of them
will send fourth from twenty to forty of those common footstalks all of
which decline or bend outwards from the common center. these ribs are
cylindric and marked longitudinally their whole length with a groove or
channel on their upper side. on either side of this grove a little below
it’s edge, the leafets are inserted, being shortly petiolate for about 2/3
ds of the length of the middle rib commencing at the bottom and from
thence to the extremity sessile. the rib is terminated by a single
undivided lanceolate gagged leafet. the leafets are lanceolate, from 2 to
4 inches in length gagged and have a small accute angular projection on
the upper edge near the base where it is spuar on the side which has the
projection and obliquely cut at the base on the other side of the rib of
the leafet. or which will give a better idea in this form. the upper
surface is Smooth and of a deep green the under disk of a pale green and
covered with a brown bubersence of a woolly appearance particularly near
the cental fiber or rib. these leafets are alternately pinnate. they are
in number from 110 to 140; shortest at the two extremities of the common
footstalk and longest in the center, graduly lengthening and deminishing
as they succeed each other.-

The small firn also rises with a common footstalk from the radix and are
from four to eight in number. about 8 inches long; the central rib marked
with a slight longitudinal groove throughout it’s whole length. the
leafets are oppositely pinnate about 1/3 rd of the length of the common
footstalk from the bottom and thence alternately pinnate; the footstalk
terminating in a simple undivided nearly entire lanceolate leafet. the
leafets are oblong, obtuse, convex absolutely entire, marked on the upper
disk with a slight longitudinal groove in place of the central rib, smooth
and of a deep green. near the upper extremity these leafets are
decursively pinnate as are also those of the large f rn. The grasses of
this neighbourhood are generally coase harsh and sedge-like, and grow in
large tufts. there is none except in the open grounds. near the coast on
the tops of some of the untimbered hills there is a finer and softer
species which resembles much the green swoard. the salt marshes also
produce a coarse grass, Bull rushes and the Cattail flagg. the two last
the natives make great use in preparing their mats bags &c.