Critical Review of the Mycological System

IX

I have seen almost all the works of recent authors. As far as it was in my power, I have neglected no means or study (and few can imagine or believe the amount of continuous labor over thirty years) to provide a work that is reliable and, for the time being, complete. But let the novice original: "Tiro" not imagine that every specimen he encounters can be immediately and safely determined (who would determine the first plants they encounter solely from Sprengel’s System or De Candolle’s Prodromus?); if, however, he has come to know the species through repeated observations in its genuine and typical range and has compared many related ones, having consulted the cited sources, he may hope that the determination will be easy and confirmed. First, he will learn to discern genera, tribes, and sections safely, then the species in nature itself—and finally, he will seek the names. Only those who have not studied mycology at all, or only superficially, imagine from their own subjective ignorance that everything in individual cases is vague and uncertain. I have rather deliberately postponed universal matters for the future.

We have seen it often stated by those truly skilled in the matter that related species in the Systema Mycologicum Mycological System are too restricted or, as others say, confused. But this has gained such authority; the path to the applause of one's contemporaries, however fleeting, seems so certain and easy that it is usually considered not a fault but rather a virtue. As far as the Syst. Myc. is concerned, I believe this is all the more easily excused, since the author was obliged to receive into this ambiguous matter only those species that were properly known to him and more frequently encountered [it is sufficient to say that hardly any species of Volume I could subsequently be rightly reduced], and he relegated the rest for future examination among the synonyms and nearest varieties. He now willingly recognizes various species among these, after it has been possible to explore their true limits and differences, which were formerly not indicated; had he preferred to persist in what was once stated as if it were established, he would have been worthy of blame. We have all seen entire botanists forced to acknowledge species once joined by themselves; when they had not properly known either one. After the edition of the Systema Mycologicum, due to the excess in other parts of botanical science, I have perceived more and more that the theoretical or rather hypothetical construction of species—which commonly attracts novices with its more elevated appearance—is vain and harmful to practical study in many ways; to botanists of keener intellect, who never neglect this typical connection for that reason, it is now clear that this matter, as explained by Link, does not belong to this head, i.e., descriptive botany, lest this empirical part of the discipline become speculative and arbitrary. Hence also, for example, the varieties of Agaricus Cortinarius gentilis original: "Agarici Cortinarii gentilis" of the S. M. (although their typical kinship is manifest) have all now been proposed separately by me, since novices can never properly grasp species so liberally heaped together. Thus, in the present work, species are sometimes limited more strictly than I would prefer, specifically when it was necessary to avoid a graver confusion of heterogeneous elements.