54 



Batch's "Elenchus fungorum" had appeared in 1783 in Jena and, between 

 1788 to i79i,Bohon's "Historia fungorum, circa Hahfax sponte nascentium," 

 in which only Linnean genera are described, there was published in 1790 in 

 Liineburg Tode's valuable work which abounds in personal observations, 

 "Fungi mecklenburgenses selecti." The extremely careful illustrations include 

 among others, the genera Acrospermum, Stilbum, Ascophora, Tubercularia, 

 Helotium, Volutella, Hysterium, Vermicularia, Pilobolus which we now find 

 among the excitors of disease. A, v. Humboldt, in his "Florae fribergensis 

 specimen" (1793) has also described a considerable nnni!)er of genera. 



But all these works, nevertheless, are to be considered only "contribu- 

 tions." A comprehensive methodical classification was first given by Per- 

 soon's "Synopsis methodica" (Gottigen 1801), for long a standard. There 

 appeared in England, from 1797 to 1809, a work by James Sowerby con- 

 taining 439 plates of valuable illustrations with the title "Colored Figures of 

 English Fungi or Mushrooms." 



Mycologists now tended more and more toward the study of the mi- 

 croscopic fungous forms even if the optical instruments of the time did not 

 make possible more exact observations. This applies first of all to Linck's 

 "Observationes in Ordines plnntarum naturales" published in the "Schriften 

 naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin" (3. Jahregang 1809-1810) and the 

 illustrated work by Nees v. Esenbeck, abounding in copies from earlier books, 

 "System dcr Pilze und Schwiimme," Witrzburg 1817, which contains a sum- 

 mary "of the theories of the lower vegetation stages in historical fragments." 

 Here also are the statements of investigators believing in sponiancoits gene- 

 fation. The author himself, if we understand correctly his grandiloquent 

 natural philosophical presentation, considers the parasitic fungi in the lowest 

 possible groups as structures produced from the mother plant itself. Thus 

 he says, for example, of the Entophyt.es, "Their most peculiar characteristic 

 is that they belong to the overloaded or exhausted life and generally, if not 

 always, develop first under the common covering without any mixture ex- 

 tending over the whole, and originally only in isolated places, formed in- 

 dividually from the life of the whole. The dependence of the infusorial cell 

 on the higher organisms is always shown by its superior position, due to its 

 more or less lengthened stem. The cell grows before it has become free and 

 its elongation on this foundation is the expression of the condition of polar- 

 ity which has been brought about, not suddenly but organically, and which 

 passes over into the cell from the main plant." Under the genus Cyathus 

 (one of the puff balls) (p. 141) it is said "the whole trunk species which 

 we have described is only a thread of dust originating from the earth itself. 

 The dust of the puff balls begets itself . . . ." 



At this time Elias Fries^ classic work was published including all 

 the known varieties of the fungus kingdom with clear diagnoses of 

 genera and species. 



1 Systema mycologicum T. I to III. I.iindae 1821, Gryphiswaldiae 1829 to 1832- 

 Elenchus Fungorum. Gryph. 1828. 



