102 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



and partly artificial. The large genus Agaricus had to be 

 broken up in some way or other, as otherwise it was unmanage- 

 able, and Fries accordingly split it into what he calls series, 

 determined by the colour of the spores. One had then 

 manageable groups to deal with, but they are artificial groups, 

 for the colour of the spores is not a sufficient basis to rest them 

 on, and has the effect of keeping fungi far apart whose affinities 

 are very close. It is no doubt a convenient arrangement, and 

 as such it has held its ground. Within the series of groups, 

 however, the arrangement is strictly natural, one might say 

 beautifully natural, drawing together into corresponding sub- 

 genera the plants that have the closest affinity. Even in 

 regard to the employment of spore-colour as a prime feature 

 in the classification of Agaricus, there is this to be said in its 

 favour that it is a great improvement on the use of gill-colour 

 for the same object, as the colour of the spores isfairly constant 

 and unchangeable, which the colour of the gills is far from 

 being, and it is strange that the earlier mycologists did not take 

 account of the colour of the spores at all. That Berkeley 

 should have adopted and popularised in this country the 

 classification of Fries is one of his chief merits. 



He has, however, merit of another kind. He is, I think, 

 unsurpassed in his description of species, and this is best seen 

 in the fifth volume of Smith's British Flora. Fries' descrip- 

 tions of species in the Monographia Hymenomycetum are very 

 fine, but Berkeley's are as careful and minute, and appeared 

 long before that work of Fries was published. The early descrip- 

 tions of Fungi were so imperfect that it is often impossible to 

 identify the plant described. One has only to compare the 

 descriptions of the same species in the Pinax of Caspar Bauhin 

 and in Ray's Synopsis and Hudson's Flora Anglica with those 

 of Berkeley in Smith's Flora to appreciate the great advance 

 that had been made. In plants like fungi ample descriptions 

 are of special value, as both Fries and Berkeley recognised, 

 if a species is to be certainly determined, and they both set 

 themselves to provide such descriptions drawn up by themselves 

 after comparison of many individual specimens. That is one 

 of the debts we owe to them both, to Berkeley at least as much 

 as to Fries. 



Berkeley's merit and reputation rest on more than his 

 identification, description and classification of species, though 

 it ma}^ perhaps be said that in connection with that his best 

 work was done. I have purposely laid stress on that part of 

 his work, because in that field he was carrying on and perfecting 

 what the earlier writers on fungi had for two centuries been 

 giving their attention to. In dealing with the early study of 



