The polyporoid types of Léveillé at Leiden. Letter No. 36

In the early days the old Dutch botanists made many collections of fungi in Java and other Dutch colonies in the East. With the exception of JUNGHUHN, they were not published by the collectors, but were vaguely named and preserved in the museum at Leiden. In this museum are many old collections by KORTHALS, BLUME, ZIPPELIUS and JUNGHUHN in the East, and MIQUEL in Surinam, but very few of them have the collector’s name stated on the label. LÉVEILLÉ visited the museum about 1844 and when he went back to Paris he published forty-five “new species” that he had noted in the museum at Leiden. He did not endorse his names on any of the labels, but he cited the collectors, often inaccurately I believe, and the names or numbers that the specimens bore. I have worked the collection over and by means of these citations have been able to identify the larger part of the types. It is possible that another search might produce others that I have overlooked, but I went carefully into the matter and believe that very few of those I did not find will ever be found or at least will ever be identified. In my opinion LÉVEILLÉ did about the poorest work in naming species of any of the old namers, always excepting KALCHBRENNER. At that time but few foreign species had been named, but LÉVEILLÉ did not seem to know even these few. In addition he often based species on very inadequate material, little abortive or undeveloped specimens that should not have been named at all. Recently all the Javanese specimens have been sent to BRESADOLA and have been named by him. A number of LÉVEILLÉ’S “types” were thus correctly named, but in the renaming they lost their historical value, if LÉVEILLÉ’S work had any value.