320 



Mycologia 



Persoon's " Synopsis " does not .contain any colored illustra- 

 tions, nor are there many plates in his two "Icones" (1798, 

 1803), but such as we find display fine taste and careful work- 

 manship. 



Of about the same quality are the illustrations which ornament 

 the work of the Rev. Lewis David de Schweinitz, the first Amer- 

 ican mycologist. Born in Bethlehem, Pa., this minister in the 

 Moravian church issued, in 1822, his " Synopsis " of North 

 Carolina fungi (1822), with two hand-colored copper plates. 

 Previously, while studying in Germany, he had published, to- 

 gether with his master, de Albertini, a work on the fungi of a 

 district in Germany called " the Lausitz " (1805). Twelve col- 

 ored plates, done by himself, accompany this publication. Before 

 the time of de Schweinitz, little had been printed on the fungi of 

 our country. The Rev. Muhlenberg's catalogues of Lancaster 

 (Pa.) plants (1793a, 1799) contain mere lists, and Gronovius' 

 "Flora Virginica," published in 1739 and 1743 (1739), notes a 

 few collections by Dr. John Clayton, among them, Lycoperdon 

 solidum, the " Tuckahoe " of the American Indians. 



De Schweinitz's life and scientific labors have been recently 

 treated with loving care and painstaking thoroughness by Drs. 

 Shear & Stevens (1917). But, whereas de Schweinitz's auspi- 

 cious beginnings in the mycology of this country bore no immediate 

 fruits comparable with his own work, Europe, by contrast, was 

 putting forth some important publications, many of them classics. 



Italy gives us Giovanni Larber, whose work of 21 hand-colored 

 plates (1829a) I have not seen; Domenico Viviani's "Fungi 

 dTtalia" (1834), with 60 hand-colored lithographs of passable 

 quality; and (1835) Carlo Vittadini's masterpiece, the " Descri- 

 zione dei Funghi Mangerecci." This work of 44 colored, en- 

 graved plates shows, by its incisive seriousness, kinship with the 

 performance of Micheli, Vittadini's great predecessor. 



Across the line, in Austria, things were stirring, too. About 

 this time, Krombholz's 76 hand-colored " Naturgetreue Abbild- 

 ungen der Schwamme " (1831) appeared in parts from 1831 to 

 1847. The figures in this rather comprehensive book are toler- 

 ably well drawn, but much too crowded on the page, and the colors 



