volumes and the figures large folios; the abundance of forms in the Thallophytes proved to be so great that many botanists devoted their whole attention to them, many collected and described only the Algae, others only the Fungi and Lichens. It is true that a deeper insight into the connection of these forms of life with one another and with other plants was not to be obtained in this way; still an empirical basis was formed for a knowledge of the Cryptogams, such as had been established for the Phanerogams by the herbals of the 17th century. All forms open to observation were named and arranged in one way or another; and there was no difficulty in understanding what form was meant, when names, or tables and figures, were cited from the various books. Of such works, those of Agardh[1], Harvey, and Kützing on the Algae, those of Nees von Esenbeck[2], Elias Fries, Léveillé, and Berkeley on the Fungi, and especially Corda's elaborate work on the latter plants are the most valuable.
- ↑ Karl Adolf Agardh (1785-1859) was until 1835 Professor in Lund, afterwards Bishop of Wermland and Dalsland. Jacob Georg Agardh, born in 1813, was Professor in Lund. William Henry Harvey (1811-1866) was Professor of Botany in Dublin. Friedrich Traugott Kützing, born in 1807, was Professor in the Polytechnic School of Nordhausen.
- ↑ C. G. Nees von Esenbeck published his 'System der Pilze und Schwämme' in 1816; Th. F. L. Nees von Esenbeck, in conjunction with A. Henty, a 'System der Pilze' in 1837. The first (1776-1858) was for a long time President of the Leopoldina, Professor of Botany in Breslati, and one of the chief representatives of the nature-philosophy. Elias Fries, born in 1794, became Professor of Botany in Upsala in 1835; he died in 1878. Léveillé (1796-1870) was a physician in Paris. August Joseph Corda was born at Reichenberg in Bohemia in 1809, and became custodian of the National Museum in Prague in 1835; he undertook a journey to Texas in 1848, from which he never returned, having probably perished by shipwreck in 1849. Weitenweber, in the 'Abhandlungen der Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft,' Bd. 7, Prag, 1852, gives a full account of this eminent mycologist. Corda was the first who thoroughly applied the microscope to copying and describing every form of Fungus that was known to him, and especially the minuter ones. His 'Icones Fungorum hucusque cognitorum' (1837-1854) are still an indispensable manual in the study of the subject.
