86 CrossJaud : The Study of Fungi in Yorkshire. 



Bolton adds ' and in the excellent work of our own countryman 

 — Mr. William Curtis, entitled Flora Londiniensis , now publish- 

 ing in numbers, are given, interspersed with other plants, many 

 accurate figures and descriptions of Fungusses, so that we may 

 hope in time to say that this extensive branch of Natural History 

 is no longer a chaos, or a shame to the science of botany.' 



Schseffer, Bulliard, Jacquin and Curtis were all contem- 

 poraneous with Bolton, and, along with him, exercised a stimu- 

 lating influence on the study of Fungi in this country. 



Bolton was fully aware of the probability of one and the 

 same species being described simultaneously under different 

 names. He says he alwa^^s had ' an aversion to the unnecessary 

 multiplying of names in our botanic nomenclature ; and there 

 is no order of plants, where we are so likely to slip into errors 

 of this kind as in the Fungusses.' 



' There is a pride in man, to be thought the inventor or dis- 

 coverer of something new. In regard to things useful, this is 

 a laudable vanity ; but to add a new name to a known plant 

 or other subject in Natural History, because we meet with an 

 individual perhaps distorted in its shape, diminished or increased 

 in quantity, sickened by improper food or soil, or tinged with 

 colours different from those of its own species, this is not only 

 vain and ridiculous in itself, but pernicious in its consequences. 

 It is not, however, at all times to be guarded against without 

 a long acquaintance with the subjects under notice, especially 

 where their specific characters are less defined and less obvious, 

 as is the case with m.ost of the plants vv^hich constitute the most 

 numerous and extensive class, the Cryptogamia ' 



' The incongruity of names .... is a stumbling block in 

 the way of science, It is an evil, however, that must at present 

 be [put up] with, because it is an unavoidable one ; for when 

 several men, strangers to each other, and in different kingdoms, 

 are engaged in the same pursuit ; suppose the same object 

 should fall into the hands of each, and is unknown to them all, 

 each fijids it necessary to give it a name, at least a specific one, 

 and he wishes to give it such an one as will be someway or other 

 expressive of the object under review. . . . But men's ideas 

 and apprehensions vary much — so that under the above cir- 

 cumstances, if the same object should fall under the notice of 

 twenty different discoverers, that five out of the twent}^ should 

 denominate it by the selfsame term, is httle less than impossible. 

 This is the principal cause of that confusion of names, which is 



. .<itu alist, 



