lo HISTORY OF LICHENOLOGY 



Extensive contributions to the knowledge of English plants generally 

 were made by Sir James Edward Smith ^ who, in 1788, founded the Linnean 

 Society of London of which he was president until his death in 1828. He 

 began his great work, English Botany, in 1790 with James Sowerby as 

 artist. Smith's and Sowerby 's part of the work came to an end in 18 14; 

 but a supplement was begun in 1831 by Hooker who had the assistance of 

 Sowerby 's sons in preparing the drawings. Nearly all the lichens recorded 

 by Smith are published simply as Lichen, and his Botany thus belongs to 

 the period under discussion, though in time it stretches far beyond. 



Continental lichenologists had been more receptive to new ideas, and 

 other genera were gradually added to Weber's list, notably by Hoffmann^ 

 and Persoon'- 



For a long time little was known of the lichens of other than European 

 countries. Buxbaum* in the East, Petiver^ and Hans Sloane^ in the West 

 made the first exotic records. The latter notes how frequently lichens grew 

 on the imported Jesuit's bark, and he quaintly suggests in regard to some 

 of these species that they may be identical with the "hyssop that springeth 

 out of the wall." It was not however till towards the end of the eighteenth 

 century that much attention was given to foreign lichens, when Swartz' in 

 the West Indies and Desfontaines* in N. Africa collected and recorded 

 a fair number. Swartz describes about twenty species collected on his 

 journey through the West Indian Islands (1783-87). 



Interest was also growing in other aspects of lichenology. Georgi", a 

 Russian Professor, was the first to make a chemical analysis of lichens. He 

 experimented on some of the larger forms and extracted and examined the 

 mucilaginous contents of Ramalina farinacea, Platysma glaucum, Lobaria 

 pulmonaria, etc., which he collected from birch and pine trees. About this 

 time also the French scientists Willomet'", Amoreux and Hoffmann jointly 

 published theses setting forth the economic value of such lichens as were 

 used in the arts, as food, or as medicine. 



F. Period V. 1 803-1 846 



The fine constructive work of Acharius appropriately begins a new era 

 in the history of lichenology. Previous writers had indeed included lichens 

 in their survey of plants, but always as a somewhat side issue. Acharius 

 made them a subject of special study, and by his scientific system of classifi- 

 cation raised them to the rank of the other great classes of plants. 



Acharius was a country doctor at Wadstena on Lake Malar in Sweden, 

 as he himself calls it, " the country of lichens." He was attracted to the 



1 Smith 1790. * Hoffmann 1798. ' Persoon 1794. ' Buxbaum 1728. 



' Petiver 1712. ^ Sloane 1796 and 1807. ' Swartz 1788 and 1791. » Desfontaines 1 798-1800. 



' Georgi 1797. '" Willomet, etc. 1787. 



