Elias Fries

Elias Fries is one of the fathers of mycology, and his works are today more in focus than ever because of their nomenclatural importance. His publications have also received renewed interest from a taxonomical point of view, and much effort has been done to interpret his species. His collections are now housed in the Botany Section of the Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University.

Elias Fries was born 1794 in the village Femsjö in the western part of the province Småland in southern Sweden. According to Fries himself his great interest in fungi started when he as a twelve years old boy came across a magnificent specimen of Hericium coralloides. Already as a school-boy he knew between 300 and 400 species of fungi, to which he gave provisory names. He started his university studies in Lund in 1811 and obtained his doctor's degree there in the year of 1813.

His first mycological publication was Observationes mycologici, of which the first volume was printed in 1815, and the second in 1818. In 1819 the first fascicle of the exsiccata Scleromyceti sueciae was published. This exsiccata, which contains Pyrenomycetes and Coelomycetes, was issued in 9 fascicles between 1819 and around 1825. His most important work was Systema mycologicum, issued in three volumes between 1821 and 1832. It has for a long time, together with Elenchus fungorum from 1828, been the starting point for fungal names and today the names in it are sanctioned. In 1834 Fries was appointed professor in Uppsala and from then on his main interest was the Hymenomycetes. Important works printed during his Uppsala-period are Epicrisis 1836, Monographia Hymenomycetum Sueciae 1851-63, Icones selectae Hymenomycetum 1867-84 and Hymenomycetes europaei 1874. He also had the ambition to educate the people in mycology. This was the aim of two books in Swedish: Anteckningar öfver de i Sverige växande ätliga svampar 1836 and the magnificent illustrated work Sveriges ätliga och giftiga svampar 1860-66.