I5 6 STUDY OF MYCOLOGY 



9. LYCOPERDON, including truffles, myxomycetes and an aecidium, in 

 addition to puft-balls. (9 species.) 



10. MUCOR, including Erysibe y Penicillium and various myxomycetes 



( 1 1 species. ) 



11. TREMELLA, placed under the Algae, including an Auricularia (?) 



and a Gymnosporangium (?). (2 species.) 



These eighty-eight species are each characterized by a single 

 sentence, and were it not for citations of older and better de- 

 scriptions and figures they would be almost wholly unintelligible. 

 Such was the first summary of the scientific knowledge of fungi 

 less than 150 years ago. 



Following this period many species were figured by various au- 

 thors which, in the absence of type specimens, have become the 

 originals of many of the species of fungi, particularly those of a 

 fleshy character. Among the more prominent of these early 

 writers were Schaeffer (1718-1790) who illustrated the fungus 

 flora of Bavaria and the Palatinate, with nearly four hundred 

 plates (1762-1774), Bulliard (1742-1793) who pictured the fungi 

 of France with even greater display (1784-1795), and Sowerby 

 (1757-1822) who accomplished a similar work for Great Britain 

 (1797-1803). All of these writers gave the most of their atten- 

 tion to the fleshy forms, the agarics coming in for a lion's share, 

 but some of the less conspicuous moulds and parasitic forms were 

 included, particularly in the figures and descriptions of Sowerby. 

 It was Corda-(i8o9-i849), however, who first gave serious atten- 

 tion to the description and delineation of the microscropic charac- 

 ters of the simpler fungi, and his memory needs no further monu- 

 ment than the six folios of Icones Fungonun (1837-1854), the last 

 published after his untimely death. The systematic study pro- 

 gressed less rapidly. Persoon (1755-1837) in 1801 published 

 his Synopsis methodic a Fungonun* in which the following genera 



* Besides this work, Persoon' s chief contributions to mycology were : 

 Tentamen dispositio methodus Fungorum. PL 1-4. Lipsiae, 1797. 

 De Fungis clavaeformibus. PL 1-4. Lipsiae, 1797. 

 Icones et descriptiones Fungorum minus cognitorum. 4to. PL 1-14. 

 Lipsiae, 1798. 



Icones pictae rariorum Fungorum. 410. 7V. 1-24. Paris, 1803-1806. 

 Traite sur les Champignons comestibles. /'/. 1-4. Paris, 1818. 

 Mycologia Europaea. 3 vols. PL f-jo. Erlangen, 1822-1828. 



