234 



During his school days he had acquired some knowledge of 

 flowering plants, but later decided to study mosses ; so he went 

 ofif to the mountains to make field studies and start a collection 

 of these plants. 



In the mountains he fell in with two Capucin monks, who were 

 gathering fungi of various kinds in quantity for the table. They 

 said that an old monk of their order had taught them, from a 

 certain book he had written on the subject, to distinguish the 

 good from the bad, and that they therefore ate a great many 

 species with impunity. Bresadola became much interested, and, 

 forgetting the mosses he had planned to study, began collecting 

 fungi and making notes upon them in the field as the monks 

 dictated. 



On returning from the field, however, and looking over the 

 specimens, he found many conflicting statements in his notes, and 

 many species, and even genera and families, thrown together 

 under the same name. When the attention of the monks was 

 called to these discrepances, they replied that lamellae, pores, 

 spines, etc., were only minor and unimportant distinctions ; but 

 they finally agreed, upon his earnest solicitation, to show him 

 their precious volume and let him see for himself how great was 

 his ignorance in these matters. The precious " original " volume 

 proved to be merely a poor synopsis of Venturi's " Stiidi Mico- 

 logici'' ; a fact which the monks strenuously denied, even after 

 he brought the true original and showed it to them. They really 

 knew practically nothing about mushrooms, and had by mere 

 luck, on more than one occasion, escaped death from poisoning. 



" In this way," said Bresadola, " I became a mycologist, and 

 I have never regretted it." 



William A. Murrill. 

 New York Botanical Garden. 



A NEW Species of Monotropsis. — The mountain region of 

 western North Carolina contains rare plants, some of which have 

 never been described or catalogued. Michaux found the SJwrtia 

 galacifolia in 1788, and after being lost sight of for nearly 100 

 years it was rediscovered by collectors of medical plants near 

 Marion in 1877. 



