Mycological System

Twenty years have now passed since the publication of the Synopsis Fungorum Persoonianæ Persoon's Synopsis of Fungi, a most meritorious work, the last to contain specifics in mycology. From that time, mycological study, led by Link and Nees, and especially of the lower orders, has been completely reformed and adapted to the present culture of the sciences more than the remaining parts of botany. Perennial principles have been established in systematology; most new genera have been determined and those already known have been more accurately circumscribed. Among the promoters of science in these last years, Sowerby, Decandolle, Schumacher, Albertini and Schweiniz, Swartz, Kunze and Schmidt, Ehrenberg, Dittmar, and others claim an excellent place for themselves. It seemed most necessary to me at present to collect the observations of these and of predecessors in a summary, having been subjected to new examination and reconciled, to facilitate the view of the science.

Mycology now constitutes a larger part of botany than is commonly believed. The species known thus far are more numerous, and almost all of them are European, than what the first Linnaean edition of Species Plantarum Species of Plants recounts. Because of the study of the rationale of the whole arrangement, not only to expose the character of the plants, but also their nature, etc., our work has also become much larger and divided into three volumes. The first describes pileate mushroom-capped and clavate club-shaped fungi; the second will review the remaining Hymenomycetes and Gasteromycetes (Phaneromycetes); the third, the Hyphomycetes and Coniomycetes (Cryptomycetes). Finally, there remains a theoretical mycology exposing the history, terminology, and physiology of fungi.