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AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HIS STUDIES 

 IN MYCOLOGY, BY ELIAS FRIES. 



TRANSLATED BY JAMES KENNY, ESQ. 



In western Smoland, between the rivers Nissa and Lagan, there lies a 

 tract, sterile and inhospitable, but varied with mountain, marsh and lake, and 

 shaded by forests, both deciduous and evergreen. Here, for forty-seven years 

 was my father — ever to me, the most indulgent of parents — pastor of the church 

 of Femsjo, and here was I born and educated. This little nook of earth, in its 

 seclusion, smiles to me with a grace more winning than all the world beside, and 

 still keeps green from the dearest memories of my youth. As our neighbour- 

 hood afforded no other boy of my age and station, my father, who at an early 

 age had been himself an ardent botanist, introduced me to the fields of Flora 

 to find there companionship amongst her children. Hence, by the time I had 

 completed my 12th year, I was acquainted with all the principal plants of the 

 district, and even now, at the distance of more than fifty years, most gratefully 

 do I recall how I was walking with my mother in search of strawberries through 

 a wood partially burned, when it was my fortune to light upon a noble speci- 

 men of Hydnum coralloid.es. This discovery first incited me to make the tribe 

 of Funguses my study ; but, on turning over Liljeblad's Svensk Flora, my only 

 scientific book, I was annoyed to find myself ignorant of the word "lamella" there 

 so frequently recurring. So, shortly after, walking with my father, I said to 

 him, " Die, pater, quid est lamella? " ("tell me, father, what is a lamella ! ") for 

 my father never suffered me to speak to him except in Latin, so that I picked 

 up Latin even before my native Swedish. "A lamella," he replied, "is a thin 

 plate." "With this explanation, the phrase seemed to me to describe so happily 

 the fructification of Agarics, that by the next day I knew all the genera contained 

 in that excellent work. More tardy, however, was the progress of my acquaint- 

 ance with species, and I am hardly able to realise that by far the greater number 

 of these found no place in my Flora. It was the year 1808, when the country, 

 distracted by alliances, intestine dissension, and foreign war, suffered all sorts 

 of military contamination throughout its length and breadth. The school of 

 Wexio, which I attended boy and lad, was closed, and I remained in conse- 

 quence altogether in the country. Thus it happened that I commenced from that 

 period to describe all the Funguses I could find, and to call them by names 



