Catalogue of Fungi

descriptions of fungi to our day are similar to the designations of herbs used by the ancients, from which neither a certain genus nor species can be elicited, and which are by no means to be placed alongside the most noble descriptions introduced by Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), the father of modern taxonomy.. Dependent and subordinate characters, carried out to the final distinction, are lacking in the description. This perhaps resulted from an excessive avoidance of labor; in the other case, too much care distracted others from the path of nature. In fungi, just as in the remaining physical and moral [sciences], sad errors arose when observers, occupied with the opinions of art, cultivated these a thousand times until, in the labyrinth of opinions, hardly a cloudy image of nature remained. Some have artificially arranged huge hosts of fungi, most excellent men! — Yet they dissolved similar things, joined dissimilar things, and, alas, did not render the final characters sufficiently distinct. In these plants, just as in the rest, and perhaps more so because of the extreme inconstancy of the artificial characters, the synopsis must be sought from nature itself, and with this intention, if I am not mistaken, fewer exceptions will then occur than with those violent distortions.

III.
Illustrations are highly necessary for the history of fungi, dyed with vivid colors, and indeed often drawn with the utmost care. No system is ever to be established in the kingdoms of nature unless an abundance of forms and remaining properties is granted to the abundant investigator. In the rest, if we except minute worms, art almost always [represents] the bodies themselves.

...constructed. To this day, descriptions of fungi are still similar to those which the ancients gave us of plants, and from which neither a certain genus nor species can be fixed. One knows how much these differ from the beautiful Linnaean descriptions, the value of which consists in the fact that all subordinate characteristics, from the first to the last, have received their proper definiteness. Perhaps these investigators of fungi sought to diminish the effort; meanwhile, others went a too laborious way, and just like the former, missed the path of nature. With fungi, the same thing applied here that has been noted so often in natural and moral philosophy: that namely, the researchers, the more they followed the path of art, the more they lost nature and truth, until they were not in the position to find the lost [truth] again. The most glorious men have given us artificial divisions of enormous fungus-lists, but they have separated similar things, joined dissimilar things, and, alas, did not even make the final characteristics sufficiently clear. As in the remaining parts of the plant kingdom, and perhaps even more so because of the extreme inconstancy of the artificial characteristics, we must here form the system according to the observation of nature itself, and if I am not mistaken, fewer exceptions will be noticed in this way than with that arrangement of violent displacements.

Illustrations painted with vivid colors, and not rarely executed with the utmost diligence, are indispensable to the history of fungi. We are not capable of drafting any system of natural bodies if we do not have many of them, or a multitude of their forms and properties, before us at once. If we except the most delicate creatures from the class of worms...