Upsala, during the latter forty years of his life, he hardly preserved a 

 single plant. There were quite a number that were collected by his 

 boys at Upsala, chiefly by E. P. Fries, that presumably were passed on 

 by his father, but even as to this we have no certain knowledge. His 

 herbarium is mostly made up of plants that were sent him by his 

 correspondents, by Blytt from Norway, Karsten from Finland, Quelet 

 from France, Kalchbrenner from Hungary, and others. While many 

 of them are Friesian species, there is no evidence that Fries gave 

 them any critical attention, and they have no authentic value except- 

 ing in those cases where particular specimens are mentioned in Fries' 

 writings. Like most of the museums of Europe, Fries' herbarium is 

 richer in foreign species than in European. One or two of Berkeley's 

 Ohio plants and some of Schweinitz's species exist only in Fries' 

 herbarium, as far as I know. 



FRIES' FAMILY 



Elias Fries was the father of eight children, four daughters and 

 four sons. The mycological world is only interested in the latter. 



Theodore M. Fries, the eldest, is now a hale and hearty elderly 

 man in his seventy-sixth year. He resides at Upsala. Of the four 

 sons of Elias Fries, his eldest is the only one who has devoted his life 

 to botanical studies, and he was a successor of his father in the botan- 

 ical chair of the university at Upsala. Unfortunately, from a myco- 

 logical view, he early became interested in lichens, and has chiefly 

 devoted himself to this family. He has written many papers on the 

 subject, and occuphs the same exalted position in the lichen world 

 that his father did in the fungus world. In explanation as to why he 

 did not follow in the same field as his father, he tells me that when 

 he began his studies, the microscope was just beginning to be used 

 in the classification of lichens, and he became so interested in the 

 problems that his whole time was taken in the investigation of the 

 questions involved. It is undoubtedly a selfish view to take of it, 

 but as a mycologist I can not but feel sorry that Theodore M. Fries 

 was not early interested in mycology instead of lichenology. 



Elias P. Fries, the second son of Elias M. Fries, early gave signs 

 of interest in his father's subject, and there are more specimens to-day 

 in the Friesian herbarium, collected by E. P. Fries at Upsala, than by 

 the remainder of the family. He was evidently an enthusiastic stu- 

 dent of the subject, and you will find in Fries' " Monographia " the 

 account of many rare species discovered by his son, E. P. Fries. He 

 died in his twenty-fourth year, and his early death was a severe blow 

 to the hopes of his father. There is every indication that it was 

 the intention of Elias Fries, as his eldest son had taken up the lichens, 

 that his second son should follow in his own chosen field. 



J. Otto Fries, the third son, is the only one who did not inherit 

 a taste for natural history study. He is now a citizen of the United 

 States, a civil engineer, residing at Orlando, Florida. 



Oscar Robert Fries, the youngest son, was a student of fungi, and 

 as a boy was a frequent companion of his father in his rambles in the 



4.8 



