ters, and collections of plants began to arrive from all the German 

 colonies of the world. Naturally a great many fungi were sent in and 

 there was no one to work them up. Dr. Hennings, with very little 

 preliminary study in this line, undertook the work. He had no in- 

 structor and a very scanty herbarium of named specimens, but with 

 that persistent application that is characteristic of the, German 

 student, he devoted himself to the work until he finally got a good 

 grasp of it. 



It was a fortunate thing that Dr. Hennings was wise in the earlier 

 days of his fungus work in sending the specimens in the herbarium 

 to Bresadola and having them gone over critically and the names cor- 

 rected. The original collection was largely that of Winters, and 

 Winters' collection was largely named by Kalchbrenner, and Kalch- 

 brenner's determinations were almost all wrong. Had Dr. Hennings 

 attempted to learn mycology on the basis of Kalchbrenner's deter- 

 minations he would have made disastrous work of it. I do not be- 

 lieve they appreciate, even at Berlin, how much they are indebted to 

 Bresadola for the correctness of most of Dr. Hennings' determinations. 



Dr. Hennings took the collection of fungi at Berlin when it con- 

 sisted of only a relatively few specimens of Winters, Link and 

 Klotzsch, and he increased it many fold until now I think, it is per- 

 haps the third or fourth largest collection in Europe. He arranged 

 and labeled the many specimens that reached Berlin from foreign 

 countries, and in addition he was an industrious collector of the fungi 

 around Berlin. In no other museum of Europe have I found as good 

 and as recent collections of the local fungi as that made by Dr. Hen- 

 nings. And he deserves great credit for it, for the collection was 

 made under very discouraging circumstances. I should as soon think 

 of hunting for mushrooms on Broadway as fungi in the woods around 

 Berlin. The Germans are much too thrifty a people to suit me as a 

 mycologist. They keep their woods too clean, and the poor fungi 

 have a hard time trying to find a little dead wood lying about on 

 which to grow. 



Dr. Hennings' work was largely the publication of " new species," 

 for it is in this manner that museums are built up. A large number 

 of " good things " came into his hands, for they were largely from un- 

 explored regions (Africa, New Guinea, etc.) and the mycology of such 

 portions of the world is as yet practically untouched. In proportion 

 to its size I think the museum at Berlin has as many novelties as any 

 museum in which I have worked. 



But it was not in the herbarium proper that Dr. Hennings did his 

 best work. He was by nature and training a mnsemx mail, -.and in the 

 "show department" of the botanical museum at Berlin is the largest 

 and finest exhibition of fungi for popular instruction that I have ever 

 seen, and D'r: Hennings made and arranged it. 



Personally Dr: Hennings was a most charming man, and students 

 visiting his collection were always welcomed and given every atten- 

 tion and facility for work. He was very kind to me on my first visit 

 to Berlin, and I missed him greatly during my recent stay. 



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