tations to labor for distinction which exist now were wanting in his day; and thus he was led, almost unconsciously, to a very high station among American botanists. Concerning this, he remarked to Dr. Wood: "Nothing surprised me more than to be called a botanist at first. Although I had accomplished the survey of the phenogamous plants of the State, I still felt that I was comparatively not a botanist." Several years later than this—about 1855—he began to give special attention to the edible mushrooms. He finally became a kind of missionary and propagandist of mushroom-eating. In the catalogue of the plants of North Carolina he had indicated one hundred and eleven species of edible fungi known to inhabit the State; and he had no doubt that there were forty or fifty more, in the less explored Alpine regions. He was accustomed to distribute basketfuls of the choicest specimens among his friends, "until the divine art of mycophagy reached a good degree of cultivation, and many of them learned to distinguish for themselves the edible ones. Some members of his family became especially expert in foraging for the table among the mushrooms"; and his son used the knowledge thus acquired in preparing the colored illustrations for the contemplated work on "Edible Fungi." This book was projected during the civil war, when the food-question was a vital one in Southern households, and was intended to make popular the use of mushrooms. In it, Dr. Wood affirms, the author succeeded in divesting himself of every technicality, and indeed in describing minutely about forty of the one hundred and eleven species in language easy to be understood, and in an enticing manner. Illustrations and comparisons were occasionally drawn from foreign authors. The work failed to find a publisher.
Dr. Curtis's studies of plants embraced every feature and relation that he was able to bring under observation. "Just to name a flower and preserve it carefully in his herbarium," says Dr. Wood, "was to him but the beginning of his work. His earliest records show that he studied the relation of plant-life to geologic and climatic surroundings. The study of botanical geography was begun and continued during his whole career as a botanist, extending over thirty-eight years. The account he has given us in his 'Woody Plants' is to-day the best guide to the natural climatological divisions of the State which has ever been given. His studies were also directed to the numerous economic questions which met him in his intimate acquaintance with the treasures of the field and forest. It was this feature of his labors alone which brought him an audience in his adopted State, and with this object in view he brought together the material which he published as a part of the Geological and Natural History Survey, known best by the condensed title given to it by Prof. Em-
