The Earlier Study of Fungi in Britain. David Paul. 99 



of his botanical brethren. His merit lies in the fact that he 

 was an able and industrious field-botanist whose labours went 

 far to increase the knowledge of plants in this country. Both Sir 

 James E. Smith and Sowerby held his work in high esteem. He 

 had the good sense to write his Flora in English whereas Hudson, 

 Relhan and their predecessors had used Latin. In the Fungus 

 part of his book the descriptions and notes are fuller and clearer, 

 so that it is always possible to identify the plant he is dealing 

 with. His division of the gilled Fungi too is more elaborate 

 and he passed a much larger number under review. Evidently 

 he had examined them carefully for himself. His subdivisions 

 rest on the nature of the stem, whether solid or hollow, whether 

 central or lateral or wanting, on the colour of the gills, and their 

 mode of attachment. This is so far a convenient grouping, but 

 it is not natural ; it does not take account of volva or ring or 

 the character of the veil or the substance of the flesh. Conse- 

 quently utterly different groups of gilled Fungi, such as Agarici 

 proper, Cortinarii, Hygrophori, Marasmii, Lactarii, are found 

 side by side. At the same time it was the most complete 

 division of the vast order of Agaracini that had yet been pro- 

 posed. In principle it is the same as that of Hudson but it is 

 more fully elaborated. His division of the Boleti, including 

 the Polypori, is similar — pored Fungi with stem central or lateral 

 or wanting, and with pores white, brown, buff, etc. His 

 remaining genera are similar to Hudson's — Hydnum, Helvetia, 

 Auricularia, Peziza, Nidularia, Phallus, Clavaria, Tuber, Lyco- 

 perdon, Reticularia, Sphaeria, Trichia, Mucor. Though a great 

 field of Mycology was not traversed either by him or by any 

 of his predecessors, partly because of the inferiority of their 

 microscopes, and partly because so much work among the less 

 minute Fungi had still to be performed, yet the knowledge of 

 Fungi was increasing yearly, as is plain from the fact that 

 Relhan's 96 gilled Fungi had mounted up in Withering's Flora 

 to no fewer than 280. The true principles of classification, 

 however, had not as yet been grasped. Nevertheless, those 

 British students of Fungi of the eighteenth century, whose 

 works we have been able only to glance at, beginning with 

 John Ray, author of the Synopsis Methodica, ought not to be 

 forgotten, or their work undervalued. They prepared the way 

 for fuller light to be shed on a difficult subject, and perhaps 

 none of them is more worthy of recognition than Withering, 

 who has not, I think, received all the credit that he deserves. 

 For the first quarter of the nineteenth century there is not 

 much of moment to notice. Sowerby's admirable figures of 

 Fungi were published between 1797 and 1803, and Greville's 

 Scottish Cryptogamic Flora between 1823 and 1828. The 



