26 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
that his first “Enumeration of some Lichenes of New 
England” was published when he w T as not more than twenty- 
two years old, and appears to have been read the year be- 
fore. Excepting Halsey’s work considered in the last 
period, this was the first w r ork by an American, entirely 
devoted to lichens. His writings, even from the first, 
contained careful notes which show that he was possessed 
of a genuine love of botany and a marked adaptability for 
the work. Thus his meeting with Fries was not merely 
an incident of his first European trip, and his visits and 
excursions with this greatest lichenist of his time musk 
have been a great inspiration in those days when botan- 
ists were few in number. Indeed, we can hardly estimate 
the value of this visit to American lichenology. In 1847, 
nearly ten years after Tuckerman began his work on lich- 
ens, appeared his “Synopsis of the Lichenes of New Eng- 
land, and other Northern States and British America.” 
This work was the first to give descriptions and a classifica- 
tion of our lichens, and though it contained but 295 species 
with 20 new, it was of great importance as it formed a basis 
from which others could work. It has already been stated 
that at the same time Tuckerman began to issue his “Lich- 
enes Americae Septentrionalis Exsiccate”, this first issue 
of American specimens giving authentic plants with which 
collectors could compare their lichens. With the year 1847, 
then, our Tuckerman period begins. There is some doubt 
in the mind of the writer whether it might not be better 
to place the time back to the year when Tuckerman’s first 
work appeared and make it close with 1886, the year of his 
death. Yet it appears on the whole that the better plan is 
to begin with the first appearance of a descriptive classifi- 
cation by Tuckerman and to close the period with the com- 
pletion of the “Synopsis” which was Tuckerman’s great 
contribution . 
Tuckerman w T as more than a lichenist as his knowledge 
of the general botany of his day w T as quite comprehensive, 
while he w 7 as a widely read and scholarly man. His pro- 
fessorship in botany at Amherst began in 1858 and con- 
tinued till his death, twenty-eight years later. But we 
