Coloured figures of English fungi or mushrooms/Volume 1/Preface
PREFACE.
Having undertaken the present Work, I feel great satisfaction in the encouragement it receives from the public, which I shall endeavour to continue to deserve.
The Twelfth Number contains the promised Index, in which are included some synonyms from different authors, many of them not quoted in the descriptions to the figures; nor could I, with confidence, have cited all of them at the time those descriptions were written, as I daily acquire a better knowledge of the species of Fungi; so that I flatter myself with being able in the end more prefectly to distinguish them than could at first have been expected. in this, Nature seems ready to lend her assistance; that very simplicity of structure which in many cases appears to have led authors into confusion, being, one would think, more likely to make this tribe of plants easily understood. Some of them are exactly a year in their progress to maturity; yet their changes in the course of that progress are very trifling, compared with those we see in (what are termed) perfect plants: such slight changes however have given rise to many supposed species. Much more frequently therefore have varieties been described as such, so that one species often happens to have been figured or described ten times over. It is indeed easier to describe or draw an individual variety, than to ascertain to what species it belongs, while it may be compared to so many in different authors. When they are more clearly ascertained, we shall possibly be able to cultivate the useful kinds; for only one, the common Mushroom, or Agaricus campestris, is at present cultivated. Some I am sure would be admired as ornaments; others are already made use of for culinary and œconomical purposes, more particularly in foreign countries. Some I am persuaded would assist in dyeing. Several of the Sphærias yield the finest black I ever met with. The Lycoperdons afford in their ripe state different browns very copiously, in a fine impalpable powder, fit for immediate drawing when mixed with a little gum arabic water. I intend when I figure some of the Lycoperdons to use their own powder to represent itself.