Barton's Philadelphia Flora (1818)
William P.C. Barton. Compendium floræ philadelphicæ: containing a description of the indigenous and naturalized plants found within a circuit of ten miles around Philadelphia. Philadelphia: M. Carey and son, 1818. 2 vols.
William Barton's Compendium is in a format similar to that used by the eminent naturalist Carl Linnaeus. The arrangement follows Linnaeus's sexual system, specific epithets are marginal to brief descriptions, synonyms are listed, and references to illustrations are given. The brief descriptions focus on leaf, flower, and fruit characters, and often lack readily observable characters more useful for identification. The referenced illustrations are a valuable supplement to the descriptions, but unfortunately, most of them are in European publications—many of them lavish—that were unavailable to most Americans.