not in any way satisfactory, and it was not until about fifty years after 
the publication of the Species that there appeared anything which 
could be called a general and comprehensive work on the species of 
fungi. If mycologists were asked who exerted the greatest influence 
in placing systematic mycology on a firm basis they would say Elias 
Fries and the Systema Mycologicum, of which the first volume ap- 
peared in 1821, had an influence in shaping the study as no other work 
had had. In saying this I do not wish in any way to underrate the 
value of the Synopsis Methodica Fungorum of Persoon, issued in 1801, 
but of the two I think that the Systema is the one which has had de- 
cidedly the greater influence in shaping the progress of descriptive 
mycology. In its three volumes together with the two volumes of the 
Elenchus which is a part of the Systema, we find for the first time an 
account of the Mycological flora of a considerable portion of the world 
rather than an account of certain orders of fungi mainly of Europe. 
In the Epicrisis of 1836-38, the Summa Vegetabilium Scandinaviae 
1849, and the Hymenomycetes Europaei 1874, we have important 
revisions and commentaries by Fries of his earlier work. The leones 
Selectae Hymenomycetum include 200 plates executed under his 
supervision of species which cannot well be studied by dried specimens 
alone. The herbarium of Fries is still at Upsala and the Sclero- 
myceti Sueciae, a collection of 450 small parasitic species, is to be 
found in herbaria in Europe and this country and has been the subject 
of critical commentaries by several botanists. The fact that the 
volumes of the Systema did not appear in the same year does not ap- 
pear to me to present a serious practical difficulty, as Volume I con- 
taining Hymenomycetes appeared in 1821 and Volume II with Disco- 
mycetes and Pyrenomycetes in 1822-23. Volume III, which did not 
appear until ten years later, includes Gasteromycetes and Fungi 
Imperfecti. 
The Synopsis of Persoon, although to be preferred to any previous 
work, is considerably less extensive in the number and range of the 
species given than the Systema, the number being about two and a 
half times as great and, in general, the Systema presents a decidedly 
more modern way of treating the group. A fuller consideration of the 
comparative merits of the Systema and the Synopis is out of the 
question in this place as it would require more time than can be 
