THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 95 



artificial system of Linnaeus, and contains four hundred 

 and fifty-four genera, with nearly eleven hundred species, 

 including both feral and cultivated plants. A supplement 

 to this Index, which appeared in the " Transactions of the 

 American Philosophical Society," in September, 1796, con- 

 tained forty-four additional genera, with sixty-two species 

 of phanerogams, of which nine were unknown species of 

 grasses, while the cryptogams were represented by 226 addi- 

 tional species, belonging to 29 genera. 



In 1809 Muhlenberg decided to write a catalogue of 

 the then known native and naturalized plants of North 

 America.* 



Muhlenberg conscientiously referred to the books which 

 he had used in the determination of his collected plants, 

 and gave credit to correspondents in different parts of the 

 United States, who had assisted him in his researches by 

 sending plants or seeds. He also made, at the same time, 

 a complete description of the plants growing around Lan- 

 caster, and likewise a complete description of all other North 

 American plants, which he had himself seen and arranged 

 in his herbarium. Unfortunately, they were never published. 



A part of these works, dealing with the grasses, was 

 printed in 1817, two years after the author's death, under 

 the title, " Descriptio uberior Graminum." f The manuscript 

 of it was presented by Zaccheus Collins, a friend of Muhlen- 

 berg, to the American Philosophical Society in 1831. 



* Catalogus Plantarum Americce Septentrionalis hue usque Cognitarum 

 Indigenarum et Cicurum ; or. a Catalogue of the Hitherto Known Native and Natu- 

 ralized Plants of North America, arranged according to the Sexual System of 

 LinncBus. By Henry Muhlenberg, D. D., Minister at Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, Lan- 

 caster. William Hamilton, 1813, octavo pp. iv, 112. 



t Descriptio Uberior Graminum et Plantarum Calamiarum American Septen- 

 trionalis Indigenarum et Cicurum. Auctore Dr. Henrico Muhlenberg. Philadelphia. 

 Solomon W. Conrad, 1817, octavo pp. ii, 295. 



