PREFACE XI 



fungi, that it seems unsafe now to approve his nomenclature. 

 Schrader also has left an excellent account of the cribrarias, the basis 

 of all that has since been attempted in that genus. 



Persoon, in his Synopsis j 1801, attempts a review of all the fungi 

 known up to that time. His notes and synonymy are invaluable, 

 enabling us to understand the references of many of the earlier 

 authors where these had otherwise been indefinite if not unintelli- 

 gible. He makes a great many changes in nomenclature, and excuses 

 himself on the ground that he follows, in this particular, illustrious 

 examples! Unfortunately, so do we all! 



Fries, in his Systema Mycologicum, 1829, summed up in most 

 wonderful way the work of all his predecessors and the mycologic 

 science of his time. In reading Fries the modern student hardly 

 knows which most to admire, the author's far-reaching, patient re- 

 search, the singular acumen of his taxonomic instinct, the graceful 

 exactness of the Latin in which his conclusions are expressed, or the 

 delicate courtesy with which he touches the work even the most 

 primitive, of those his predecessors or contemporaries. Nevertheless 

 in our particular group even the determinations of Fries are not con- 

 clusive. He himself often confesses as much. The microscopic tech- 

 nique of that day did not yield the data needful for minute compari- 

 son among these most delicate forms. 



It remained for DeBary and Rostafinski to introduce a new factor 

 into the description of species, and by spore-measurement and the 

 delineation of microscopic detail to supply an element of definiteness 

 which has no parallel in the work of any earlier student of this 

 group. Under these conditions the revision undertaken by Ros- 

 tafinski was of a most heroic sort. His work was almost a new 

 beginning; and while in nomenclature he was inclined to follow the 

 Paris Code, yet the inadequacy of the earlier descriptions often made 

 such a course impracticable. The synonymy of Rostafinski is largely 

 that of Fries, and upon this the Polish author attempts to apply the 

 law of priority. In the historical note, wzmianka historyczna, ac- 

 companying the description of each specific form, he generally states 

 the reason for the nomenclature he adopts, whether selected from the 

 mass of supposed synonymy or introduced by himself de novo. Un- 



