THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 265 



painfully even now. With considerable quiet humor he 

 tells how that when he was teaching in Mr. Bartlett's school 

 he determined on three different occasions to go down on 

 the boat to New York and stay there several days to " do 

 the city," and each time returned home on the first train 

 he could get, suffering with a violent headache caused by 

 the excitement of the trip and the noisy bustle of the city. 

 His fellow-botanists feel his influence and recognize the 

 value of his work, but wonder why they never see his 

 kindly face at any of the botanical meetings of the country. 

 It is simply because his health, at all times precarious, 

 demands constant quietude coupled with strict simplicity and 

 regularity in his daily life. A thorough scholar and quite 

 a linguist, he is perfectly familiar with Latin, Greek, Ger- 

 man and French, and has also a good practical knowledge 

 of Polish, Swedish, Italian and Spanish. 



What Asa Gray was to American phanerogamic botany, 

 Job B. Ellis is to American mycology. He has published 

 besides numerous other papers on mycology, a manual of 

 North American Pyrenomycetes * which has given a great 

 impetus to the study of fungi in this country. Despite a 

 checkered and toilsome life in past years, often in financial 

 straits, and always burdened with delicate health, he has 

 probably done more than any other man in America to 

 advance the knowledge of our native fungi and to stimulate 

 the ardor of every student of mycology. 



The collection of fungi, made by Mr. Ellis, represents 

 the net results of over forty years continued work in 

 collecting, determining and arranging the different species 



* The North American Pyrenomycetes. A Contribution to Mycologic Botany. 

 By J. B Ellis and B. M. Everhart, with original illustrations by F. W. Anderson. New- 

 field, New Jersey, 1892. Octavo, 793 pp., tab. 41. 



