Elias Magnus Fries

Swedish mushrooms

Stockholm, P.A. Norstedt & Söner, 1860 - 1866.
Folio [37 by 27,5 cm]. [2], 54 pp. + lithographed title-leaf + 94 chromolithographed plates (of which 7 are double-page), by E. Pettersson, P. & F. Åkerlund & H. Salmson, after E. Fries.
Contemprary half calf gilt. The copy of Adolf Tamm [1838-1925], with his rubber stamp on front free endpaper.

First edition. The chromolithographed plates and the lithographed title were printed by A.J. Salmson, Stockholm and Abrah. Lundquist & Cie, Stockholm.

Elias Magnus Fries [1794-1878], Swedish botanist, entered the university of Lund in 1811, where in 1814 he was elected docent of botany and in 1824 professor, in 1834 he became professor of practical economy at Uppsala, and in 1844 and 1848 he represented the university of that city in the Riksdag. On the death of Göran Wahlenberg (1780-1851) he was appointed professor of botany at Uppsala. Fries was admitted a member of the Swedish Royal Academy in 1847, and a foreign member of the Royal Society of London in 1875.
Fries's foremost accomplishment in botany was in systematics. As an author on the Cryptogamia he was in the first rank, and today his reputation is based primarily on his mycological work and his ability to describe species. His Systema Mycologicum forms the basis for the nomenclature within all groups of fungi except Uredinales, Ustiginales, and Gasteromycetes.
* Krok, p. 211. DSB, 5, pp. 190-2. S. Lindroth (ed.), Swedish Men of Science 1650-1950, pp. 178-85. Nissen 655. Pritzel 3110. Volbracht, MykoLibri, 663.