1840.] Linnean Society. 71 



the pen of Mr. Keith, occur also in the Philosophical Magazine and 

 Annals of Natural History. 



Mr. Keith had long been suffering from severe illness, which ter- 

 minated in his death on the 25th of January last, at the age of 71, 

 at the parsonage of Stalisfield, in Kent, of which parish he had been 

 for many years vicar. He was a native of Scotland, and received 

 his education at the University of Glasgow. 



Ml.lliam Kent, Esq. — Mr. Kent was a zealous botanist and hor- 

 ticulturist, and formerly possessed an extensive garden at Clapton, 

 where, among many other choice plants, he successfully cultivated 

 the beautiful Nelumbhim speciosum, and other tender aquatics, of 

 which he was a liberal distributor to his friends. His health obli- 

 ging him to retire to Bath, he lost the means of indulging his inclina- 

 tion to horticulture on so large a scale ; but of his garden on Bath- 

 wick HUl, it might truly be said that there never perhaps were so 

 many rare plants cultivated together in so small a space. Notwith- 

 standing he laboured under a painful complaint, he was also happily 

 able to amuse himself by landscape painting ; and at the same time 

 he was ever active in promoting useful institutions, moral, scientific 

 or literary. 



Do)i Mariano Lagasca, Professor of Botany, and Director of the 

 Royal Botanic Garden at Madrid, was a native of the province of 

 Arragon, where his father followed the occupation of a farmer. He 

 was sent at an early age to the Gj'mnasium of Tarragona, and after 

 pursuing the course of study prescribed at that institution, he re- 

 paired to Madrid to complete himself for the medical profession, for 

 which he had e^inced a predilection. At Madrid he had the good 

 fortime to attend the lectures, and to acquire the friendship, of the 

 celebrated Cavanilles, at that time Professor of Botany in the 

 Spanish capital, and these circumstances laid the foundation of 

 the eminence to which he afterwards attained. In 1822, on the 

 assembling of the Cortes, he was returned Deputy for his native 

 province, and on the overthrow of the constitutional form of go- 

 vernment in, November of the following year, he was obliged to 

 consult his safety by flight, first to Gibraltar, and afterwards to 

 this country, v/here his high moral character, amiable disposition, 

 and eminent talents, gained him universal esteem and respect. 



Spain, long famed as the granary of ancient Rome, is known to 

 surpass all other countries in the great variety of those grasses 

 which are cultivated for human food, such as wheat, barley, rye and 

 oats : and many of those whom I am now addressing may remem- 

 ber the extensive and interesting collection of Spanish Cerealia cul- 



