ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. I9 



Scarcely a common name escaped him, as various as they were in 

 all the numerous localities. 



Since Woody Plants was issued, it has been made the basis of 

 several publications, and we fear without proper authorization. The 

 report on Forestry by Hough, prepared for the general govern- 

 ment, has quoted voluminously from Curtis, and since then a volume 

 bearing on its covers the modest title of Woods and Timbers of 

 North Carolina only reveals its true character after we pass the 

 new title page. I am sure, though, that the author would have been 

 delighted when he was preparing his little volume for the press with 

 so much labor and such rare knowledge as a free offering to his 

 adopted State, if he could have known that it would have been so 

 largely read and appreciated by those for whom he originally in- 

 tended it. 



As great a task as the collection of the Phi«nogamous Plants was. 

 Dr. Curtis had fully completed it before his Woody Plants was pub- 

 lished. Of coarse, exception is here made to a. small number of 

 plants discovered since chiefly by Mr. W. M. Canby, Mr. Hyams, 

 Mr. McCarthy, Maj. Young, and myself. Early in his career he 

 undertook the study of the fungi. This very difficult branch of 

 botany at that time had few votaries, and the unexplored field was 

 immense. There was no book that could be considered a text-book 

 on the subject published in America. The Rev. L. D. de Schweinitz 

 had made two contributions to the fungi of America, one in 1820, 

 published in Leipsic, and entitled ''Fungi Carolinw Superioris,'' 

 the other a "Synopsis Fangorum in America Boreali media de- 

 gentlum,'' published in the Transactions of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society in 1831. With these guides to local species, our 

 enthusiastic student addressed himself to his labor of love. 



In 1846 he commenced a correspondence with Mr. H. W. Ravenel, 

 of South Carolina, a correspondence which was continued until Dr. 

 Curtis' death in 1872. Mr. Ravenel was then, as he is now, a de- 

 voted student of the fungi, having made large collections. His 

 position now among American botanists is that of very high au- 

 thority on the subject. 



About two years after Dr. Curtis began his correspondence with 

 Mr. Ravenel, he also commenced a correspondence with the Rev. 

 M. J. Berkley, of England. Mr. Berkley became greatly attached 

 to Dr. Curtis by reason of the ardor and accuracy with which he 

 pursued the investigation of new species. De Schweinitz had him- 



