PREFACE. 



ThE zeal for the cultivation of botany which is now so prevalent among the citizens of Phi- 

 ladelphia, as well as the medical class of the University,* renders aBoxANicAL vade mecum 

 for those who attend to this pursuit, a desidcratum. The following pages may serve that purpose. 

 They are therefore given to the publick with a wish that they were better, and a beUef that, even 

 as they are, they vvill be useful. They contain a catalogue of about four hundred and fifty 

 genera of plants, collected within ten miles around Philadelphia. Of this number four hundred 

 are indigenous, and the rest are either naturalized or so commonly cultivated among us, that it 

 has been deemed expedient to introduce them into this Peodromus. They will, of conse- 



• While every votary of tbis deli(?htfiil science must view with satisfaction, the augmented train which courts its charms, let it 

 notbeforgotten that in this great city, now the emporium of the sciences and arts of Northern America, scarce a quarter of a cen- 

 tury has elapsed since botany may be said to have been known by name alone. To Professor Barton, wlio kept alive, cherislied, and 

 increased to a bright flame, a little spark of botanick fire, is certainly to be attributed the present conspicuous predilection for the 

 study of this alluring science in Philadelphia. As early as the year 1789, Dr. Barton was appointed Professor of Natural History 

 aud Botany in the College of Phik.delphia, and in 1791, on tbe union of the Collegewith the University of Pennsylvania, the trustces 

 of the united instltution confirmed the former appointment. Some courses of lectures on botany had been delivered in the CoUege 

 of Philadelpliia, prior to the year 1789, by Dr. Ad.im Kuhn, who in his youth enjoyed the peculiar feliclty of having been a pupil of 

 Linnseus. Hence the germ of that love for botany, which was nurtured and expanded by an unremitting zeal, continued in despite of 

 obstacles of no trifling magnitude, by the present Professor of Botany in the University, for the space of six and twenty years. Dur- 

 ing this period Professor Barton deli vered twenty-five* courses of leetures on botany, in which he inculcated a high sense of the real 

 ftene/f ts of the pursuit, in a medical point of view, with an enthusiasm that gave unequivocal evidence of his attachment to tlie in- 

 terests of the science and the honour of the University. Such was the success of these effbrts, that during the period when the laws 

 of the medical school rendered it obligatory upon the candidates for its honours to print their inaugural tlieses, not one commence- 

 ment was held without a number of dissertations being published, detailing experiments on the medicinal properties and effects of 

 indigenous vegetabies; most of them undertaken at the instance and prosecuted under the auspices of the Professor. The authors 

 of these tracts were scatteredannually,throughdifferent sections of theUnited States; many of them clierished the love for botanick 

 pursuits which they had imbibed here — they became botanisls. And thus have the exertions of the Professor been seen and felt, 



tbeyond the precincts of the university. In addition to these facts it may be mentioned, tliat many years ago I)r. Barton successfully 

 appLed himself to the production of an elementary work on the principles of botany, ol' acknowledged excellence. Let not the name 

 CT) in the title page of this book lessen in the mind of any one the force or effect of these observations. The writer knotes himself to 



i be capable of impartiality on the subject of them, and in publishing them has taken advantage of the absence in Lurope of the Pro- 



£ fessor, whose presence and desire would in all likelihood have caused tlieir sujipression. They were excited by perusing a para- 



^^ graph in the reviewf of Clinton's Introductory Discourse before the New-York Literary and Philosophical Society — are conscientiously 



i unbiassed, though made with an honest pride, and a desire to " render unto Casar the thtn^s that are C<esar's." 



J 



* The vacancy that occurred in the school during the absence of Dr. Barton last summer in Europe, was fiUed by a luminous eourse of 

 elementary and philosophical leotures on Botany, by Mr. Correa. 



(S3 t ReTiew of Clmtons Discourse m The Port Foliofor August 1815. 



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