Nomenclature — Since it was an unfamiliar tree, early recorders who recognised it as a separate species and wished to record it, had to find a name for it. It may be this species that Cartier (1534) records as iffz (yews) — though equally, since he does not record spruce or fir, it is possible that what he saw was actually balsam fir.38

However, by the end of the seventeenth century a name particular to Acadia was being applied to the hemlock by most French recorders: éricot (also spelled héricot or haricot)”, and éricot (usually pronounced aricot) is still today the standard name for hemlock in Acadian-French — unlike Canadian- French, in which, to further confuse matters, pruche is the name used.

The tree lists — It is listed (as héricot, hérico or dericot)40 in three of the eight tree lists (Table 1-2) — those of Roma (1750), Franquet (1751) and La Roque (1752). It is possible that hemlock could also have been grouped with other conifers under the épinette of Gotteville (1720) and Duchambon (1738), though there is no way of determining whether this is so or not.

Specific areas — La Roque (1752) records ’dericot’ (though ’little of it’) on the Isle du Comte de Saint Pierre [St. Peters Island], and also along the portage running across the Malpeque-Bedeque isthmus“. Pichon (1760E) also records haricot at this same spot — but since he appears to have taken this from La Roque, his record does not have independent value.42

3" Ganong (1909) (p. 221) considered that Cartier’s iffz was

probably the hemlock, as does Bideaux (1986) (p. 328), while

Rousseau (1937) (p. 60) suggested that it could have been either hemlock or fir.

39 The first written record is in 1684 (Massignon 1962, p. 173). It is a name of unknown origin. Massignon (p. 174) suggests, without presenting any evidence, that it may be a borrowing from Amerindian — though it bares no similarity to the Mi’kmaq name for hemlock, kesooskiboog (see Clark, Micmac Place Names in the Maritime Provinces).

4° ‘den'cot’ may be a mis-reading of “hence!” by the transcriber of the 1906 printed version of La Roque's census. Elsewhere in his cenus La Roque uses the word ‘hen'co’.

‘1 From Captain Samuel Holland’s map of thirteen years later (Plan of the Island of St. John in the Province of Nova Scot/a, 1765, PARO Map 0617), we can precisely place this track as including the present highway running from Travellers Rest to Reads Corner.

‘2 It was the mis-translation of Pichon's haricot as ‘French beans'

by his 1760 translator (Pichon 1760E) (understandable for someone schooled in the French of France) that was later picked

13)

Conclusion — Considering the potential for hemlock to be grouped by the recorders with other conifers under names such as sapin and e’pinette, its frequency in the records suggests that it was not uncommon.

TAMARACK OR LARCH (Larix Iaricina)

[French names : via/on, épinette rouge, me’léze] Identification — Because of its unusual leaf arrangement (the needles are mostly clustered in tufts or whorls) and its deciduous character, tamarack is one of the most distinctive of the conifers. An equivalent species (Larix decidua) occurs in Europe, though in France it is found only along the eastern Alpine border“3 and thus would not have been familiar to most French people during or before the eighteenth century.

Nomenclature — The standard name in France for larch is mé/éze, a name unknown in either the historical records or the vernacular language of French Canada or Acadia. In Quebec it has always been known as épinette rouge, a name in use since at least 1664“, which — to confuse matters — it shares there with the red spruce (Picea rubens). However in Acadian-French it is called via/on (literally the ‘violin').“5

The tree lists — Considering its present abundance and distribution on Prince Edward Island, there is no reason to think that tamarack would have been uncommon in the eighteenth century, and because of its distinctiveness, it should have caught the eye of early recorders. It is thus puzzling that it does not show up in the lists under any of its French names. It is especially surprising that it is absent from the otherwise reasonably comprehensive lists of Roma (1750) and La Roque (1752), in neither of which can it be subsumed under the name épinette, since this is absent from

up by Warburton (1923) (p. 59) and subsequently spread from him to local historical accounts (e.g. MacLeod 1980, p. 1).

‘3 Jalas & Suominen 1973.

4‘ Massignon 1962, p. 166. ‘5 In the Evangeline region in 1998 the name in use was petit vio/on (see Endnote). The earliest written use of violon found in Acadian-French by Massignon (1962) (p. 167) is that of Bishop Plessis who commented on the name during his pastoral visit to Prince Edward island in 1812. (Plessis’ description is not included in this report as it post-dates the French period - it will be included in the next report.)