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APPENDIX. 



IN the foregoing pages no account has been given of several 

 families of plants, although some of them are as common as 

 those described. These have been omitted either because they 

 are such as do not so often attract the attention of the young 

 botanist, or such as are too difficult for his first attempts. 

 Such are the Grasses, the Sedges, and the Rushes ; the Um- 

 bellate Plants ; the Trees ; the Water Plants ; &c. 



As my object is to describe all the common plants, it is 

 right to make a few remarks upon each of these in turn. It 

 may be more delightful to gather the gayer flowers, yet a true 

 botanist will collect all, and if he cannot assign to each spe- 

 cimen its proper specific name, he will very soon learn to 

 what class, order, and genus each belongs, and thereby 

 greatly increase his general knowledge of its names and 

 properties. 



GRASSES. GRAMINA. 



With the exception of one common species, which is the 

 SWEET-SCENTED VERNAL GRASS, (Anthoxanthum odora- 

 turn,) all our native Grasses belong to Triandria. " They 

 seem particularly the objects of nature's care ; with these she 

 clothes the earth, their seeds sustain its inhabitants, and a 

 great part of the animal world is supported upon their leaves* 

 Being thus necessary for our subsistence, (for here are included 

 all kinds of corn,) nature has made them thrive under treatment 

 by which other plants are destroyed, the more their leaves are 

 consumed the thicker their roots increase, the more they are 

 trodden upon the faster they grow." 



They may for our present object be divided into three sec- 

 tions. First those Grasses which bear their flowers in spikes, 

 among which are the MEADOW FOX-TAIL GRASS, (Alopecurus 

 pratensis,) a plant two feet high, which has a smooth, round 

 spike, covered in the hay season with purple, orange, or yel- 



