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Ant. XIII.—Bibliographical Notices. 
1A Discourse on the character, properties, and importance to. py 
of the natural family of plants called Graminee or True Grasses ; 
delivered as a lecture before the Chester County Cabinet of Natural 
Science, Feb. 19th, 1841; by Witu1am Daruineton, M. D.— Chester 
County Cabinet of Natural Science, an institution of which the ‘town 
of West Chester may well be proud, has, in addition toa regular course 
of public lectures on chemistry, astronomy, natural philosophy, &e. re 
for the last year or two provided. a series of extra discourses on mis- 
cellaneous topics of science and literature, several members of the So- 
ciety delivering each one or more lectures upon any subject they 
may deem sufficiently interesting or instructive. On a previous occa- 
sion, viz. in the course for the winter of 1839, Dr. Darlington chose 
for his theme, the. theory of the development and transformation of the 
eternal, organs of isin as , Rronoundes. by Wolf and Geethe, and 
W Cor Dee SNE as int part of the science of botam » as the 
nic t This intere ce 
does of a ae oe ae 
for private distribution... Premising that the subject may be aka % 
possess a degree of general interest, in a district so distinguished ‘or 
its agricultural advancement, Dr. Darlington first: defines what a grass 
1B 5° remarking, that “ the term grass, in our vernacular tongue, is fre- 
quently used in a vague sense, to designate every ind of herbage 
found in our meadows and pastures; hence, we often hear people 
speak of clover, lucerne, and other plants—which have no botanical 
affinity whatever with true grasses—as though they really belonged. 1 to 
that remarkable tribe of vegetables. . But such is not the language of 
‘ naturalists, _ and ought not to be of any well-informed person. Ai cen 
curate knowledge of objects can neither be acquired nor communicated 
without precision in the use of terms.”’.... Having thus hastily glanced 
at some of the more. striking features of the extensive tribe technically 
-denomina ted grasses, and the characters by which ‘they are ‘distin- 
“guished from other plants, I flatter myself we shall have no difficulty 
in recognizing any member of that family which may hereafter come 
in our way. It will be no news, indeed, to any of us, to be told that 
Fed-top, Timothy, and fox-tail, are grasses ; and we all, perhaps, may 
‘be aware that our cultivated. oats, barley, wheat and rye, and even 
tice, belong to the same category. But the fact may ‘not be equally 
familiar to every one; that our Indian corn, and broom corn, the sugar 
cane, and Ta hantite are also true and genuine grasses. Much as 
