( 4° ) 



-vj* 



ir. The Botanical Hijlory of the Genus Ehrharta. By Olcf Szvhrt 



M.D, F.M.L.S. 



Read Jamuiry 7, 1800. 



-l\MONG the numerous botanical acquifitions made upwards of 

 twenty years ago by Profeflbr Thunberg during his cxtenfive pere- 

 grinations in the fouthern part of Africa, was a kind of grafs, \vhofe 

 difference from all before known, occafioned hirn to confider it as a 

 peculiarly difl:in6l genus. It was aftenvards defcribed and deline- 

 ated by him in the Memoirs of the Swedifh Royal Academy for 1 779, 

 f, 216. /. 8. under the name of Ehrharta^ In honour of F. Ehrhart, 

 native of Berne in Switzerland, once a pupil of the elder Linnaeus, 

 and His Britannic Majefty's botanift at Hanover ; a man of great 

 merit in the fcience of botany, and who is well known by his 

 labours, particularly in the hiftory of grafles and the cryptogamous 

 tribe. 



The fame year this genus was adopted amongft the Nova Graminum 

 Genera^ arranged in a diflertation under the prefidency of the younger 

 LinnsEus at Upfala, 



In the mean time, the Abbe Rozier publifhed in his Journal de 

 Phyfique, 1779,/. 225. a botanical defcription made by L. Richard, 

 ot a kind of grafs called by him Trocherajlnata^ of which, notwith- 

 ftanding the indifferent figure he has given, it is not difficult to per- 

 ceive the near affinity with the former. ' 



Several years afterwards the Prefident of the Linnasan Society 

 defcribed in the fir ft fafciculus of his Plant arum Icones hadenus tnedtto'^ 



/. 9. 



