Abstract
In 1993, the Farlow Reference Library of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard University received a gift of a slim volume, entitled Icones fungorum Niskiensium. Vibrant water colour illustrations of fungi covered the pages bound within it. It was attributed to Lewis David von Schweinitz, the American born “father” of North American mycology. Schweinitz coauthored his first mycological publication with Johannes Baptista von Albertini in Germany, 1805: Conspectus fungorum in Lusatiae superioris agro Nieskiensi crescentium (An overview of fungi growing in the area of Niesky in Upper Lusatia), now considered a classic mycological text. Schweinitz, a prolific and skillful mycological illustrator, prepared the plates of illustrations appended to the Conspectus and produced many unpublished water colours of the fungi treated therein. The results of our research into the provenance of the Icones fungorum Niskiensium are presented here. Building upon recent scholarship, we provide analysis of its role in the early development of the Conspectus. An index to the figures, cross-referenced to Schweinitz’s other unpublished volumes of water colours and to the Conspectus, is also provided. To make the Icones fungorum Niskiensium publically available, the volume has been digitized and may be accessed through the Biodiversity Hertitage Library (BHL) portal.
Highlights
In the archives of the Farlow Reference Library of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard University there is a slim volume bound in red cloth, consisting of 249 vibrant water colour paintings of various species of fungi
Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Schweinitz’s profession was as a minister and administrator in the Moravian Church in America, a mainline Protestant denomination that became established in Pennsylvania in 1741 (Hamilton 1900, Rogers 1977)
There, in 1805, he published in collaboration with his friend, professor and mentor Johannes Baptista von Albertini (1769–1831), an account of the fungi of that locality entitled Conspectus fungorum in Lusatiae superioris agro Nieskiensi crescentium
Summary
In the archives of the Farlow Reference Library of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard University there is a slim volume bound in red cloth, consisting of 249 vibrant water colour paintings of various species of fungi. E methodo Persooniana [An overview of fungi growing in the area of Niesky in Upper Lusatia, according to the methodology of Persoon] (hereafter referred to as the Conspectus) (Rogers 1977, Hewitt et al 2016) It documents more than 1000 species, including over 100 new species attributed to “Alb. There is a single fly-leaf bearing a hand-written inscription in ink on the recto: “Catherine Eliza Perceval — Philadelphia — March 8th 1826 —.” (Fig. 1E) Following this are 50 leaves of plates, 25 x 18 cm, each bearing several water colour figures of fungi on the recto with a plate number written in the upper right corner (Fig. 2). On some of the leaves page numbers, figures, and names near the edges have been cropped
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