21 



AN INTERESTING UNPUBLISI 1 ICD WORK ON 

 FUNGI * 



I)V J. C. Arthur 



It is not often that a work in systematic botany remains a hundred 

 years without being given to the pubhc in some form of the printer's 

 art, if possessed of genuine merit. Yet this has been the fate of 

 Hedwig's " Descriptio et Adumbratio Microscopico-analytica 

 Fungorum." Every student of plant-rusts has noticed that many 

 species of Uredinales first published in de Candolle's edition of 

 the Flore Frangaise, issued in 1805, with a supplementary vol- 

 ume in 181 5, are accredited to " Hedw. f.," often with citation 

 of the work and of the particular plate bearing an illustration of 

 the species. Even the genus Gymnosporangiinn was not evolved 

 by the learned author of the great French flora, but by the ob- 

 scure " Hedw. f.," and its type species, G. coniaiin, is illustrated 

 in " Hedw. f. Fung. ined. t. 2." It would seem that this inedited 

 treatise, from which de Candolle secured such rich gleanings, 

 must have been a work of superior value. I had often wondered 

 who the author could have been, and why a work of such evi- 

 dent merit had never been published, and about two years ago 

 having an opportunity to call at the Candollean Library in Gen- 

 eva, Switzerland, I made inquiry about the matter. I found, as 

 I had correctly surmised, that the manuscript was in the library. 

 Through the kindness of M. Casimir de Candolle, the present 

 owner of the library, I was permitted to examine it. It is well 

 preserved ; and I was enamored with the beauty and skill dis- 

 played in its preparation. It is a small quarto, with pages of let- 

 ter-sheet size. There are about fifty pages of text, and thirty-one 

 pages of plates, the latter most exquisitely drawn and colored by 

 the author. The work deals largely with the Uredinales, and is 

 remarkable for the clearness with which the observations are 

 made, and the discrimination which the author shows in present- 

 ing the more important characters of the fungi which he de- 

 scribes. The full title page runs as follows : 



* Read before the Torrey Botanical Club, January 27, 1904. 



