Preface

“The love of nature and the scenes she draws is nature’s’ dictate.” 

My first idea of drawing and painting the Fungi of Maryland had for its object educational training in a mission school. I though that to color and describe them would be the most effectual method of explaining the many obstruse points in structure which might otherwise be forgotten. What more difficult department in Botany could have been selected_ what more common objects to the poor boy and girls who roam through forests and over meadows, daily coming in contact with what they are taught to dread and to name “Toadstools”? I confess to a smile at my choice of this subject, feeling that for once I had stepped from the subline to the riduculus. Yet I felt satisfied with my undertaking believing that the study of natural science in any of its departments has a refining influence that when used in its truest higher sense it is the Divinely appointed means of teaching faith as well as of cultivatin the mind and the morels. As my work progressed, and even when it closed, so far as the school was concerned, I became deeply interested in the study of Fungi, so that what I had engaged in as a charity became a fascinating occupation.  

In Maryland with some few exceptions, fungi are considered vegetable outcasts—like beggars by the wayside dressed in gay attire, they ask for attention but claim none. Thus, a beautiful flora remains unnoticed—the life history of its plants is wrapped in obscurity—the forms so variable as to excite distrust whether or not there are any fixed laws to govern them. That the study is intricate no one who has engaged in it can deny, and the beginner though full of enthusiastic love for the subject must make perseverance a virtue or fail before the caprice of a fungus. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that the study claims interest only among the few. 

I must here express my thanks and obligations to Professor Charles H. Peck of Albany, New York for his kindness in helping me to determine some of my plants. My correspondence with him and his “Annual Reports”, have been a rich source of information. As a token of my high appreciation of his instruction and encouragement I dedicate this book, by permission, to him. I have also received much kindness from the few mycologists in the United States with whom I have conferred. Professor Philip R. Uhler of Baltimore, though not a mycologist has aided me in collecting and brought to me several plants figured in this book to which his name is pended as collector. My friend Dr. Russell Murdock, of Baltimore, has taken much interest in my work, for which I owe him thanks. Dr. William Hand Browne, of the John Hopkins University, has been another kind friend. He aided me in collecting and his name is memorialized in this book in connection with a beautiful plant which he discovered

Preface 

and which I dedicated to him, Agaricus (Tricholoma) Brownei. It will be observed that several of the drawings are duplicates, this is for the purpose of showing the variations in plants bearing the same name. It may be thought by those unacquainted with the glowing colors found among Fungi that some of my drawings are the creations of fancy, but such is not the case. I invite the careful observation of the skeptical and they will find that their paint bosces hardly afford pigments bright enough to sketch those beauties of the woods. In nature there is a transparent brilliancy in many plants caused by their being covered with a pellicle5 which is viscid.

From early childhood to the present “Toadstools” so called, have claimed my admiration. I was deeply impressed by their mystery and their beauty—perfectly at home in their varied forms and structure long before I had books to teach me classification, but for all that, I was darkly wise. At present I confess to great ignorance and cannot overcome a feeling of diffidence in making a gift of this book to the New York State Museum of Natural History. My only apology must be the earnest desire to preserve the work of years lest it perish for want of safe keeping. It is quite possible that it contains many inaccuracies, but the drawings showing the color size and structure of the plants are faithful to nature. The entire volume comprising one hundred and seventy-five drawings, has been not so much a work of labor as of pleasure and of love. 

Baltimore March 12th, 1889.