MEMOIR OF CHAMISSO. z 489 
ing the study of Botany in schools, which should contain 
the most known plants, both wild or cultivated, accompanied 
by a sort of explanatory catalogue; in short a familiar Gram- 
mar of Botany. This task he executed and wrote a * Glance 
at the principal botanical productions, either wild or culti- 
vated, in the North of Germany, especially the most useful 
and the most noxious kinds; with some general remarks on 
the Vegetable Kingdom; by Adelb. Von Chamisso, Berlin, 
1827.” In this little work, Chamisso endeavoured to call 
attention to the more striking aspects of the vegetable 
world. 
The beautiful collection of Ferns, which he had confided 
for description to Prof. Kaulfuss of Halle, appeared in 1824, 
but six years elapsed from the time of our subject’s return 
from his travels, before any thing more than fragments of 
his discoveries was given to the world. He longed to 
publish them ina more complete form, and when I com- 
menced my exclusively Botanical Journal, the Linnea, Cha- 
misso set to work in earnest on his plants, that he might 
embrace this opportunity of making them known. It was 
desirable to notice also those numerous undescribed plants, 
existing in the public collection, which the activity of Sellow 
in the Brazils and of Mundt and Bergius at the Cape, had 
detected ; and to these, together with Chamisso’s discoveries, 
a series of papers in the Linnea was devoted, wherein we 
strove to define the specimens before us and to give general 
remarks upon them, with occasional illustrations by plates. 
Thus the northern plants were pretty well defined and pub- 
lished, except the grasses and Cyperacee. 
The former had been given by Chamisso to his friend 
Trinius, that indefatigable labourer in this department of 
Botany, and the other portion he had reserved for his own 
illustration, but just at this period, the fire, as already men- 
tioned, put all his work into disorder; many of his specimens 
were lost in the hurry and confusion attendant on that 
misfortune, and worst of all, his friend Eyssenhardt was no 
longer living to aid him, so that they were laid by for awhile 
