ADDENDA 283 



now attained, the lists may gradually disappear as having historical 

 value only. 



b. Taxonomy, in any field, is of necessity concerned with history. 

 For his own sake, no student can ignore the thought and work of his 

 predecessors. No man ever sees nature in completeness, nor even the 

 small part of the world to which he devotes attention. He needs 

 every possible assistance, especially the observations of intelligent men. 

 The present author rejoices to acknowledge the assistance found in 

 volumes written in Europe during the last two hundred years. Such 

 men as Persoon, Bulliard, Schumacher, Schrader, Fries, are de- 

 servedly famous; they laid the foundations of mycologic taxonomy. 

 No student can afford to miss Elias Fries; his genius, spirit and 

 scholarship entitle him to the recognition and sympathy of every lover 

 of the intellectual life. 



c. The considerations just mentioned may, indeed do, sometimes 

 act as a handicap to the American student, for the simple reason that 

 he comes later to the field of time. He must naturally defer to the 

 decision of men in Europe who are supposedly familiar with original 

 types. An American specimen is presumably the same as one occur- 

 ring elsewhere in similar latitude and environment. It becomes evi- 

 dent after while that only in certain instances is this undoubtedly the 

 fact. The flora of the American continent has been sufficiently dis- 

 joined in space and time from Europe to permit extensive differentia- 

 tion even in these minor forms, so that we have indeed in the groups 

 we study many species, some genera, definitely autochthonous, more 

 it is believed than are now suspected. An attempt to bring a speci- 

 men under the terms of a species described in Western Europe is not 

 seldom an error. It becomes evident, as we go forward, that m 

 eastern North America there are forms not only not described in 

 European literature, but really not, part of European flora, not even 

 adventitiously. 



d. Many of the more minute species with which this volume has 

 to do are very elusive, very difficult; for one reason, — perhaps in 



