Elias Magnus FriesFRSFRSEFLS (15 August 1794 – 8 February 1878) was a Swedish mycologist and botanist. He is sometimes called the "Linnaeus of Mycology".[1] In his works he described and assigned botanical names to hundreds of fungus and lichen species, many of which remain authoritative today.
Fries most important works were the three-volume Systema mycologicum (1821–1832), Elenchus fungorum (1828), the two-volume Monographia hymenomycetum Sueciae (1857 and 1863) and Hymenomycetes Europaei (1874).[9]
Fries died in Uppsala on 8 February 1878.[13] When he died, The Times commented: "His very numerous works, especially on fungi and lichens, give him a position as regards those groups of plants comparable only to that of Linnaeus."[14] Fries was succeeded in the Borgström professorship (from 1859 to 1876) by Johan Erhard Areschoug,[15] after whom Theodor Magnus Fries, the son of Elias, held the chair (from 1877 to 1899).[16]
Publications
Monographia Pyrenomycetum Sueciae (1816)
Systema Mycologicum (1821)
Systema Orbis Vegetabilis (1825)
Elenchus Fungorem (1828)
Lichenographia Europaea Reformata (1831)
Epicrisis Systematis Mycologici: seu synopsis hymenomycetum (1838)
His wife was Christina Wieslander (1808–1862), with whom he raised nine children. His son Theodor Magnus Fries became a botanist and lichenologist, eventually holding the Borgström professorship himself, and another son, Oscar Robert Fries, became a physician in Gothenburg while maintaining a keen interest in mycology.[18] Theodor "Thore" Magnus's sons Thore Christian Elias Fries and Robert Elias Fries also became botanists.[19]
References
^Bevan, R.J. (1981). "Aspects of mycological history". Bulletin of the British Mycological Society. 15: 20–25. doi:10.1016/S0007-1528(81)80003-X.
^The Times, Thursday, 21 February 1878; p. 6; Issue 29184; col. C
^Areschoug, John Erhard in Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson, 1906, Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon, Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm, pp. 42–43. (In Swedish)
^Fries, Teodor (Thore) Magnus in Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson, 1906, Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon, Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm, pp. 361–362. (In Swedish)