PREFACE xi 



that passed by the name of fungus, and proposed that they 

 should be set off in a family by themselves ; l but he suggested 

 no definitive name. Nees (C. G.) also made the same observa- 

 tion in 1817, and proposed the name dErogastres ; but he cites 

 as type of his ./Erogastres Etirotium, and includes so many 

 fungi, that it seems unsafe now to approve his nomenclature. 2 

 Schrader also has left an excellent account of the Cribrarias, 

 the basis of all that has since been attempted in that genus. 



Persoon, in his Synopsis, 1801, attempts a review of all the 

 fungi known up to that time. His notes and synonymy are 

 invaluable, enabling us to understand the references of many of 

 the earlier authors where these had otherwise been indefinite if 

 not unintelligible. He makes a great many changes in nomen- 

 clature, and excuses himself on the ground that he follows in 

 this particular illustrious examples. 



Fries, in his Systema Mycologicum, 1829, summed up in most 

 wonderful way the work of all his predecessors and the myco- 

 logic science of his time. In reading Fries the modern student 

 hardly knows which most to admire, the author's far-reaching, 

 patient research, the singular acumen of his taxonomic instinct, 

 the graceful exactness of the Latin in which his conclusions are 

 expressed, or the delicate courtesy with which he touches the 

 work, even the most primitive, of those his predecessors or con- 

 temporaries. Nevertheless in our particular group even the 

 determinations of Fries are not conclusive. He himself often 

 confesses as much. The microscopic technique of that day did 

 not yield the data needful for minute comparison among these 

 most delicate forms. It remained for De Bary and Rostafinski 

 to introduce a new factor into the description of species, and by 

 spore-measurement and the delineation of microscopic detail to 

 supply an element of definiteness which has no parallel in the 

 work of any earlier student of this group. Under these con- 



1 Schrader, Nova Plantarum Genera, 1797, pp. vi.-vii. 



2 Rostafinski, Mon., p. 15, speaks very slightingly of Nees, but does not hesitate 

 later on to copy directly without credit the younger Nees's figures. V. Rost., Mon., 

 Tab. IX., Figs. 161-163. 



