Lloyd Mycological Writings V4.pdf - MykoWeb

view of past conditions, for it is difficult to do anything with mycology
from a study of the literature, and not only difficult but impossible to
recognize American growing plants from descriptions in European
works. The only way they will be ever collated is by the efforts of
some one possessed of a practical field knowledge of the floras of both
countries. When this is carefully accomplished, if it ever is, I am
confident that very few endemic species will be found in America.
Notwithstanding, the highest consideration is due to the workers
in the older school in mycology, such as Peck, Morgan and Ellis, who
very naturally thought they were working with an absolutely new
flora, and who, in that opinion, devoted their energies to the naming
of the specimens discovered. Although I believe they were mistaken
in regard to many of their species being new, it is my belief that it
was not all their fault, for they tried their best to identify their plants
from the literature at their command. In this connection, a wellworn
copy of Fries' Hymenomycetes Europaei that is in Albany
to-day, stands a mute but eloquent witness of the persistent efforts
of Professor Peck in endeavoring to connect and identify his specimens
with the European plants.
And this work has not been lost; it will be many years, not during
this generation, before the ultimate truth will be known in regard to
the identity of the American species, during which time the names
proposed by our American mycologists will serve a useful purpose.
While it is very difficult, and with most species it is impossible,
to identify a species from an isolated description, a large part of
Professor Peck's work has been more practical and valuable, viz. :
systematic accounts of the species of New York genera. We look
upon these monographs as the most valuable work that has been
done by anyone in American mycology. The larger part of the subject
has, by the persistent study of years, been covered by Professor
Peck, and it is to be hoped that he will continue the same process;
for I believe none will disagree with me in that he is the only real field
worker possessed of a practical knowledge of American agarics. We
publish following a list of the monographs that have been issued by Professor
Peck and the numbers of the Reports in which they may be found :
It will be noted that of the 47 genera of New York Agarics, Professor Peck
has monographed 28 and there remain but four important ones to be monographed,
viz.: Coprinus, Cortinarius, Marasmius, and Mycena. The remainder are
mostly small genera that can soon be disposed of. It is surely to be hoped that Professor
Peck will be able to complete the work, which will then be the basis of all
future work with American Agarics.
I believe these monographs to be the most practical work that has been done
with American agarics, and I think we have no other publications on agarics that
equal them in value. It was my experience some years ago when I was working on
agarics that whenever I found a species in a genus Professor Peck had monographed
I rarely had any trouble in determining it. On the other hand, in the genera that
had not been monographed by Professor Peck, of the greater part of the specimens
I found, I could come to no satisfactory conclusions regarding them. In my opinion,
only monographic work has any practical value, and then only where an author
like Professor Peck, has a thorough field knowledge of the subject. The various
keys of American agarics that have been compiled by those who have principally
a book acquaintance with them, as well as the flood of name juggling that is now
going on, have little value and are not much credit to American Mycology.
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