PREFACE. 
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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 a botanical vade mecun 
for those who attend to this pursuit, a desideratum. The following pages may serve that purpose. 
They are therefore given to the publick with a wish that they were better, and a belief that, even 
as they are, they will 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 this delightful science must view with satisfaction, the augmented train which courts its charms, let it 
not be forsrotten 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, who kept alive, cherished, 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 
and Botany in the College of Philadelphia, and in 1791, on the union of the College with the University of Pennsylvania, the trustees 
of the united institution confirmed the former appointment. Some courses of lectures on botany had been delivered in the College 
of Philadelphia, prior to the year 1789, by Dr. Adam Kuhn, who in his youth enjoyed the peculiar felicity of having been a pupil of 
Linnseus. Hence the germ of that love for botany, which was nurtured and expanded by aii 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 delivered twenty-five* courses of lectures on botany, in which he inculcated a high sense of the real 
benejitsot the pursuit, in a medical .point of view', with an enthusiasm that gave unequivocal evidence of his attachment to the in- 
terests of the science and the honour of the University. Such was the success of these efforts, that during the period when the laws 
of the medical school rendered it obligatory upon the candidates for its honours to print their inaugural theses, not one commence- 
ment was held w’ithout a number of dissertations being published, detailing experiments on the medicinal properties and effects of 
indigenous vegetables; most of them undertaken at the instance and prosecuted under the auspices of the Professor. The authors 
of these tracts were scattered annually, through different sections of the United States; many of them cherished the love for botanick 
pursuits which they had imbibed here — they became botanists. And thus have the exertions of the Professor been seen and felt, 
beyond the precincts of the university. In addition to these facts it may be mentioned, that many years ago Dr. Barton successfully 
applied himself to the production of an elementary work on the principles of botany', of acknowledged excellence. Let not t)ie name 
in the title page of this book lessen in tire mind of any one the force or effect of these observations. The writer kno-ws himself to 
be capable of impartiality on the subject of them, and in publishing them lias taken advantage of the absence in liurope of the Pro- 
fessor, whose presence and desire would in all likelihood have caused their suppression. 7’hey were excited by perusing- a pai-a- 
graph in the reviewf of Clinton’s Introductory Discourse before the New-York Literary' and Philosophical Society — are conscientiously' 
unbiassed, though made with an honest pride, and a desire to “ render unto Caesar the thinys that are Caesar’s.” 
* The vacancy that occurred in the school during the absence of Dr. Barton last summer in Europe, was filled by a luminous course of 
elementary and philosophical lectures on Botany, by Mr. Correa. 
t Review of Clinton’s Discourse in The Port Folio for August 1815. 
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