July 26th. The Gleditschia is a small tree here; Geum album, Myosotis virginiana, Amaranthus hybridus, Erigeron canadense, Solanum carolinianum, very luxuriant and still flowering. The leaf of the Tilia glabra I found to measure thirteen inches in length, and eleven in breadth. Bignonia radicans, Dioscorea villosa, a Helianthus with a leaf margined with spines, the narrow-leaved Brachystemum, the Lyatris pycnostachia, Rudbeckia purpurea, and various others in flower. Juglans porcina and cinerea, Ostrya virginica, Rhus copallinum.--August 4th. Dr. Lowry informed me he has seen Pyrus coronaria, forty feet in height, in the forests about Franklin. He showed me a Rudbeckia about three feet high with a cone of dark purple flowers, probably a new species.
5th. Eupatorium hieracifolium beginning to flower, Menispermum canadense, here called "sarsaparilla," its slender yellow roots being substituted for that article.
6th. A Mimulus is found here resembling M. ringens, but the leaves are not sessile; peduncle very short, flowers large, pink-coloured, stem acutely quadrangular; Campanula Americana, three and a half feet high.--JAMES.
[122] The name of this river has undergone many changes, appearing as Charleton, Charlatan, Chératon, Charliton, Chareton, and Charlotte; the form Chariton has now become fixed. The origin is unknown.
The town here mentioned, two miles north of Glasgow, was laid out by Duff Green, a famous Jacksonian politician, and other associates. The growth was for a few years so rapid that one settler exchanged St. Louis lots for an equal number in Chariton; but the location proved unhealthful, and was abandoned in 1829. Monticello, on higher ground, a mile away, and Thorntonsburg, at the mouth of the Chariton, were founded in succession, but likewise disappeared. Glasgow, laid out in 1836, was the first permanent town in the vicinity.--ED.
[123] The Des Moines River. The Illinois Indians called their habitat Moingona. The French contracted this to les Moins, and called this stream la Rivière des Moins. Later the name became associated with the Trappist monks (moines), and by a play on words was changed to la Rivière des Moines.--ED.
[124] On the Sauk and Foxes, see Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, note 21. For the Iowa, see Brackenridge's _Journal_, in our volume vi, note 13.--ED.