16 MR. G. BENTHAM ON GRAMINE. 
other special agrostologists, Desvaux and Palisot de Beauvois, had 
ample time to avail themselves of Brown's work. Desvaux pub- 
lished his new genera in a memoir which firsi appeared in abstract 
in the * Nouveau Bulletin de la Société Philomathique ? for 1810, 
and afterwards in full in the first volume of his second * Journal 
de Botanique' in 1813. Between these two periods Palisot de 
Beauvois published his ‘Agrostographie,’ in which he undertook 
a general arrangement of the whole Order, with definitions as well 
of the old-established genera as of a large number of new ones, 
including those of his contemporary Desvaux. The majority of 
these genera have since been adopted; but his arrangement of 
them was far too technical and his characters often so vague, that 
they could in most instances scarcely have been identified, were it 
not for the names of the species which he refers to them and for 
the really good analytical drawings accompanying his work. As 
itis, several of his names have been misapplied by subsequent 
botanists, who have not paid sufficient attention to, or have not 
seen, those drawings. 
A few years later, three eminent botanists undertook the 
general study of Graminee. Kunth at Paris and afterwards at 
Berlin, Trinius in Germany and afterwards at St. Petersburg. 
and Nees von Esenbeck at Bonn, afterwards at Breslau, worked 
more or less contemporaneously, but with little or no communi- 
cation with each other. Kunth’s * Revisio Graminum, published 
in 1829 and following years, is a work not only splendidly illus- 
trated, but remarkable alike for the aecuracy of detail in the deserip- 
tions of species, as for several of the views given of their structure 
and arrangement. This work, however, is so costly as to be acces- 
sible to few botanists, and the more generally known first two 
volumes of his * Enumeratio Plantarum,’ containing the Grasses, 
were unfortunately a far too hasty compilation. He had entered 
into an agreement with old Cotta for the preparation of a com- 
pact Synopsis Plantarum on the plan of Persoon’s, and had 
received a considerable sum of money on aecount of the work ; 
but when it eame to the actual drawing it up, Cotta iusisted upon 
its being arranged according to the Linn&an system, which Kunth 
would no more agree to than did the elder Richard in the case of 
Persoon. The Synopsis or Enumeratio was therefore still in 
abeyanee when old Cotta died ; and his successors, not caring for 
the special plan adopted, insisted on an immediate return for the 
money advanced ; and I several times heard Kunth himself much 
— cement amm preme 
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