100 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



plates in both these works have not been surpassed, and they 

 were of first-class importance at the time for the study of fungi, 

 and indeed are so still. It was only however in the second 

 quarter of the century that any forward movement was made 

 in this country in the study of Fungi, that which will always 

 be associated with the name of Berkeley. Before touching 

 briefly on his great contribution to Mycology, it is necessary 

 to mention the name of one to whom he was much indebted, 

 Elias Fries of Sweden. I have not hitherto taken notice of 

 the work of foreign botanists or of their influence on our own 

 countrymen as that would have led into too vast a field, but 

 Fries stands by himself in the department of Mycology and his 

 influence on all his contemporaries and successors has been 

 too marked to be left unmentioned. 



His first important work on Fungi, the Sy sterna mycologicum, 

 was published between 1821 and 1832; his Epicrisis in 1838; 

 his Monographia between 1857 ^^id 1863, and his Hymeno- 

 mycetes Europaei in 1874. How he prepared himself for these 

 works he tells us himself. He describes his wanderings through 

 every accessible part of Sweden, his untiring industry in 

 observing and collecting specimens, the unflagging enthusiasm 

 with which he pursued the study of Fungi from the time that as 

 a boy of twelve he accompanied his mother into a wood to 

 gather strawberries, and there found a very large specimen of 

 Hydnum corralloides, his passion for accuracy shewn in his 

 examination and description, three times repeated, of all the 

 species he could discover, and his determination to make his 

 different lists as complete and perfect as he possibly could. 

 That spirit in which he worked for more than sixty years lay 

 at the root of his success, and prepared the way for the 

 high position he received among European mycologists. He 

 developed a genius for classification and for detecting affinities, 

 and among the Hymenomycetes in particular his grouping of 

 the plants has hardly been improved on. Perhaps our love of 

 Fries and our obligations to him cause us to exaggerate his 

 merits, but after all allowance has been made for the devotion 

 of pupil to master, and the warping of judgment that may arise 

 from it, the study of earlier works on Mycology in our own 

 country makes it perfectly clear that he stood head and shoulders 

 above all our authors in that branch of Botany. We are not 

 on that account to minimise what those earlier authors have 

 done ; they were groping their way among difficulties, dealing 

 with plants presenting great perplexities, and gradually working- 

 out a scientific system. Each of the early students of Mycology 

 made his contribution, and, as they succeeded one another, each 

 enjoyed the benefit of his predecessors' attempts and failures. 



