30 Some Early Philadelphia Botanists — Leonard. 



■which he was the first president. A year later the Doctor's botan- 

 ical tastes first displayed themselves by his beginning a descriptive 

 catalogue of the plants growing about West Chester. This was 

 published in 1820, under the title Florula Cestrica enlarged in 

 1837 as Flora Cestrica and again in 1853 made complete for the 

 entire county of Chester. 



This book is a standard local authority, so compiled as to 

 suit both amateur and scientist. (I once had the pleasure of consult- 

 ing a copy in the Merchantile library of Philadelphia.) 



Dr. Darlington had made many friends in his favorite science, 

 for in 1853, a rare and curious genus of pitcher plant was called 

 for him — Darlingtonia Calif ornica. 

 His botanical works are: — 



Agricultural Botany — or strictly American Weeds and Useful 

 Plants, — published first in 1847, Agricultural Chemistry, (1840) 

 and (his last works) Notae Cestrienses, the latter being a series of 

 observations on the flora and natural history of Chester Co. 



Besides these, a treatise on the Mutual Influence of Habits 

 and Disease and several memoirs of personal friends — Baldwin, 

 Bartram and Marshall, all men interested in the Phila. Academy 

 of Sciences — came from his pen. 



Let me read from the Dr.'s American Weeds, etc., two para- 

 graphs to show how broad a field Botany embraced in his mind 

 and how all persons should be more or less instructed therein. 

 "It is a great mistake, in my opinion, to suppose that the sig- 

 nificant language of our science must necessarily })e merged in the 

 vernacular idiom or degraded into the local ijatois^ in order to 

 ftdapt it to the capacities of intelligent practicical men * * * 

 Instead of writing down to the level of boorish comprehension, I 

 would rather see agricultural works gradually written up to the 

 scientific standard. 



* * * « * * * 



''The study of botany, in its widest sense — comprising as it does, 

 the entire vegetable creation — will ever have its select votaries in 

 those who appreciate its manifold charms, and find their reward 

 in the pleasures incident to the present. But when regarded in a 

 more limited and practical point of view, it may fairly challenge 

 the attention even of the most inveterate utilitarians. There are 

 three aspects, or relations of the science in which its importance 

 .will scarcely be denied by the most penurious calculator of econom- 



