(he was an only child) in botany, and it was from finding a speci- 

 men of Hydnum coralloides, while pursuing natural history studies 

 with his father, that young Fries was first attracted to the study of 

 fungi. As a young man he attended the university at Lund where 

 he took his degree in his twentieth year, Soon after graduation he 

 obtained a minor position with his Alma Mater, that of Decent (1814), 

 then Adjunct, (1819), and in 1828 he was appointed Demonstrator of 

 Botany at the University at Lund. In the meantime he became very 

 much devoted to the study of mycology and a voluminous writer on 

 the subject. When only twenty-seven years of age he began the 

 Systema Mycologicum, a work of three volumes, which was finished 

 in 1832, and was a complete account of all the fungi known in those 

 days. Like all young men, Fries was at first ambitious to cover the 

 whole fungus world, but like every one else, as the years rolled by, he 

 contracted his field of study and his next extensive work, Epicrisis 

 Systematis Mycologici, 1836-1838, was devoted exclusively to the 

 Hymenomycetes. In 1834 he was appointed Professor of Practical 

 Economics in the University at Upsala, which was then a section of 

 Philosophy. Wahlenberg was at that time the head of the Depart- 

 ment of Botany at Upsala. 



Owing to the prevalence of cholera in Sweden in 1834, which 

 interrupted means of travel, Fries was unable to reach Upsala until 

 April, 1835. He resided there the remainder of his life, except a 

 temporary residence at Stockholm, during the sessions of the Swedish 

 Parliament (" Riksdag ") of which he was for two sessions (1844-5 an< ^ 

 1847-8) a member. Fries succeeded Wahlenberg, and in 1851 was 

 appointed Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanical Museum 

 and of the Botanical Garden, which post he held until his retirement 

 in his sixty-fifth year. During the last thirty years of his life Fries' 

 studies were devoted more exclusively to the Hymenomycetes of 

 Sweden, and principally to the fleshy agarics. He knew the agarics 

 of Sweden as no man ever knew them before, or perhaps will ever 

 learn them again. He was a most persistent and industrious searcher 

 after fleshy fungi. He took long walks and covered much ground, in 

 both the frondose and pine woods, and there is no question but that 

 he met -and knew practically all the fleshy agarics that grow in Swe- 

 den. But Fries' studies were not only made in the fields but in the 

 literature, and he hunted up all the old illustrations and descriptions 

 in order to get names for his plants. And to crown it all he wrote a 

 complete text-book of the Hymenomycetes of Europe, not only a sys- 

 tematic account of his own observations, but a synopsis of all other 

 literature of the subject. This work he finished on his eightieth 

 birthday, August 15, 1874, the day on which the photograph was 

 taken that we present on the first page of this pamphlet. Fries' 

 Hymenomycetes of Europe remains to this day the only book cover- 

 ing the entire fungus field of Europe. 2 



2 The Claris Hymenomycetum, by Cooke and Quelet, 1878, is a very convenient, condensed 

 synopsis of Fries' book, and Enchiridion Fungornm, by Quelet, 1886, was a second edition of it 

 (largely with the names juggled). 



4 l6 



