JOURNAL 
OF THE 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Vou. 13 May 4, 1923 No. 9 
BOTANY.—The identification of Raddi’s Grasses.1 AGNes CHAsnE, 
U.S. Department of Agriculture. 
One of the earliest works treating of the grasses of America is 
the Agrostografia Brasiliensis sive Enumeratio Plantarum ad familias 
naturales Graminum et ciperoidarum spectantium, quas in Brasilia 
collegit et descripsit [by] Josephus Raddius, published at Lucca, Italy, 
in 1823. This little book of 58 pages and one plate is exceedingly 
rare. In it are described 26 species of Cyperaceae (sedges) and 65 
species of Poaceae (grasses). Of the latter five genera and 35 species 
are proposed as new. A few of these had been described earlier by 
Bertoloni in a paper in Opusculi scientifici . . di Bologna in 1819. 
Raddi’s work and the specimens on which it is based are of great 
nomenclatorial importance to agrostology. 
Giuseppe Raddi was born in Florence, Italy, February 9, 1770. 
In 1817, when the Austrian emperor seized the opportunity to send a 
scientific expedition to Brazil with the escort of the Archduchess 
Leopoldine on her voyage to Brazil to marry the heir apparent to the 
Brazilian throne, the Grand Duke of Tuscany sent Raddi to join the 
expedition. Raddispent two years in Brazil in the vicinity of Rio de 
Janeiro. Presumably his work was chiefly that of securing seeds and 
living plants for the botanic gardens of Tuscany. He published 
three books based on his work in Brazil, Synopsis Filicum brasilien- 
sium, 1819 (19 pages and 2 plates); Agrostografia brasiliensis, 1823; 
and Plantarum brasiliensium nova genera et species novae vel minus 
cognitae. Pars. I. Filices, 1825 (101 pages and 84 plates). Part I is 
the only one of the projected work ever published. 
Raddi was later sent to Egypt and died at Rhodes on his return 
in 1829. 
1 Received March 9, 1923. 
167 
