389 



accepted the post, but soon realised that his equipment for the 

 task was insufficient. Finding it impossible to pet an adequate 

 knowledge of the subject in America he came to Europe and 

 studied for two years in France and Germany. He worked under 

 T)e Bary at Strassburg and there no doubt acquired the taste for 

 mycology, to which the greater part of his life was devoted. 

 His earlier papers, however, were on Algae and Pteridophyta, 

 and the most noteworthy of them is that on " An asexual growth 

 from the prothallus of Pteris semilata," in which he described 

 for the first time the phenomenon of opogamy in ferns. 



After his return from Europe, he became in 1874 Assistant 

 Professor of Botany at Harvard, and was stationed at the Bussey 

 Institution, the Agricultural School of the University. There 

 his studies of fungi were naturally directed towards those of 

 economic importance, and various articles on plant diseases, such 

 as Potato Pot, Black Knot, Onion Smut, etc. appeared in the 



Bulletin of the Institution and in the reports of the Massachusetts 

 Board of Agriculture. 



In 1879, Farlow was appointed Professor of Cryptogamic 



Botany at Harvard, which post he held for about 40 years. He 



now devoted himself more especially to the systematic study of 



fungi, but although he published little on other cryptogams he 



did not neglect them, and continued to add to his knowledge. 



Of marine algae, for instance, he had such a thorough grasp 



that he could generally refer a specimen submitted to him to its 



correct genus, and would frequently make a good guess as to the 

 species. 



It is as a systematic mycologist, however, that he is best 



own. Up to the year 1910 he published numerous papers on 

 rungi— -critical, monographic and floristic. In the conrse of his 

 work he compiled a card index of American mycological litera- 

 ture, which formed the basis of the " Provisional Host-Index 

 *' of the Fungi of the United States." in which he was assisted by 



Mr. A. B. Seymour, and the i€ Bibliographical Index of Worth 

 American Fungi." Publication of the latter was undertaken by 

 the Oarnegrie Institution of Washington, but unfortunately onlv 

 the first part appeared in 1905. It is to be hoped that the rest 

 of the work will eventually be made available for reference. 



Fallow' s opinion on matters of nomenclature was held in high 

 esteem. Together with Professor G. F. Atkinson, he represented 

 the United States at the International Congress held at Brussels 

 in 1910. " 



In view of some recent controversies with regard to physiologi- 

 cal specialisation in fungi, his address, as Chairman of Section G, 

 Botanv, of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, 1898, on " The Conception of Species as affected by 

 recent investigations on Fungi, ,f deserves the notice both of 

 systematists and physiologists for its sane outlook. 



Among the many honours received by Professor Farlow were 

 the degrees of LL.D. of Harvard, Glasgow, and Wisconsin, and 

 Ph.D. of Upsala. He was a member of the National Academy 

 of Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society, and was 

 President of the American Association for the Advnncement of 

 Science in 1906. He was a Foreign Member of the Linnean 



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