210 Fungi 



done among the Lichens by Prof. E. Tuckerman, whi 

 the Late lamented Dr. W. E. Barvey, ander the aaspicee 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, has described and figured 

 in an admirable manner, a large number of our Alga-. 

 But no one has been found t<> write a treatise upon or 

 perfect a manual of our species <>f Fungi. That class of 

 Cryptogamia which exceeds all others combined, in its 

 number of species, and which is full of interesting 

 peculiarities, has been strangely neglected. 



It might be interesting to dwell a little upon the proba- 

 ble cause of this neglect, to inquire if a toadstool really is 

 such- a repulsive object, or if there really are such formi- 

 dable difficulties in the way of their investigation as this 

 aversion of botanical authors would indicate. Hut as it 

 is our purpose merely to give a simple rehearsal ^>l' what 

 has been published on this subject in our country, to call 

 attention to some of the more conspicuous and interesting 

 traits of these singular plants, and to point out some of 

 their more important relations to other objects, we will at 

 'present dismiss that inquiry. 



L. D. Schweinitz was one of the earliest and most active 

 mycologists of this country. His " Synopsis of the Fungi 

 of North Carolina " contains a list of nearly fourteen 

 hundred species, of which three hundred and ten, or nearly 

 one-fourth, aredescribed as new species. The descriptions 

 are in Latin and generally brief. This was followed in 

 1834 by his "List of North American Fungi." published 

 in the Transactions of the American Philosophieal Society, 

 second series, Vol. IV. It includes the names of nearly 

 thirty-one hundred species, of which more than nine 

 hundred are described as new. These descriptions also 

 are in Latin and much more full and satisfactory than 

 those of the former list. In neither case, however, are 

 the dimensions ^i' the spores of the microscopic species 

 given, a character sometimes quite important. Most of 



