Linnaan Society. 



233 



cultivated the interesting department of Vegetable Physiology, 

 to which he published an Introduction in 1816, under the title of 

 ' System of Physiological Botany,' in two volumes, 8vo. The 

 work contained the fullest and best account of the subject at that 

 time in the English language, and was, moreover, enriched by nu- 

 merous original remarks. Mr. Keith was likewise the author of a 

 Botanical Lexicon, published in 1837, and three separate Memoirs, 

 printed in the 11th, 12th and 16th volumes of the Society's Trans- 

 actions ; the first on the Formation of the Vegetable Epidermis, the 

 second on the Development of the Seminal Germ, and the third 

 on the Origin of Buds. Several papers on botanical subjects, from 

 the pen of Mr. Keith, occur also in the Philosophical Magazine and 

 Annals of Natural History. 



Mr. Keith had long been suffering from severe illness, which ter- 

 minated in his death on the 25th of January last, at the age of 71, 

 at the parsonage of Stalisfield, in Kent, of which parish he had been 

 for many years vicar. He was a native of Scotland, and received 

 his education at the University of Glasgow. 



William Kent, Esq. — Mr. Kent was a zealous botanist and hor- 

 ticulturist, and formerly possessed an extensive garden at Clapton, 

 where, among many other choice plants, he successfully cultivated 

 the beautiful Nelumbium speciosum, and other tender aquatics, of 

 which he was a liberal distributor to his friends. His health obli- 

 ging him to retire to Bath, he lost the means of indulging his inclina- 

 tion to horticulture on so large a scale ; but of his garden on Bath- 

 wick Hill, it might truly be said that there never perhaps were so 

 many rare plants cultivated together in so small a space. Notwith- 

 standing he laboured under a painful complaint, he was also happily 

 able to amuse himself by landscape painting ; and at the same time 

 he was ever active in promoting useful institutions, moral, scientific 

 or literary. 



Don Mariano Lagasca, Professor of Botany, and Director of the 

 Royal Botanic Garden at Madrid, was a native of the province of 

 Arragon, where his father followed the occupation of a farmer. He 

 was sent at an early age to the Gymnasium of Tarragona, and after 

 pursuing the course of study prescribed at that institution, he re- 

 paired to Madrid to complete himself for the medical profession, for 

 which he had evinced a predilection. At Madrid he had the good 

 fortune to attend the lectures, and to acquire the friendship, of the 

 celebrated Cavanilles, at that time Professor of Botany in the 

 Spanish capital, and these circumstances laid the foundation of 

 the eminence to which he afterwards attained. In 1822, on the 

 assembling of the Cortes, he was returned Deputy for his native 

 province, and on the overthrow of the constitutional form of go- 

 vernment in November of the following year, he was obliged to 

 consult his safety by flight, first to Gibraltar, and afterwards to 

 this country, v/here his high moral character, amiable disposition, 

 and eminent talents, gained him universal esteem and respect. 



Spain, long famed as the granary of ancient Rome, is known to 

 surpass all other countries in the great variety of those grasses 

 which are cultivated for human food, such as wheat, barley, rye and 



