Botanist and mycologist Elias Magnus Fries was born on this day in 1794, in Sweden. It might seem odd using a mycologist as a seed for the Sudoku Garden on a botany blog, but at the time mycology was a branch of botany, and Fries was an exceptional mycologist.
Between 1821 and 1832, he published three volumes of Systema mycologicum. This study systematically classified fungi based on their fruiting bodies. This was work built on what the naked eye could see, so it’s no surprise that more recent work, including molecular work that Fries could never have anticipated, has revised much of the biology. But it’s had less of an effect on the names, because there’s an odd rule that comes into play if Fries accepted a name.
There’s a rule in biology that if you’re the first person to name a species, your name stands. If someone else has named it first, your name goes. But not in one corner of mycology. In mycology some names used by Fries are sanctioned, meaning that they take priority. The names Fries picked in Systema mycologicum and Elenchus Fungorum are the winners of any contest over which name applies, even if it turns out someone else described the species earlier. When a species switches genus, the epithet endorsed by Fries still travels with it. Fries’s labels are so important to mycologists, they cannot put them aside.
How to Play
Six plants fill each row
each column, each box of six
no bloom may repeat
Tap an empty cell
then choose your plant from below
watch the garden grow
Or pick a plant first
then tap the cells where it goes
faster hands plant more
Red borders will warn
when two alike share a line
rethink and replant
Ticked plants rest complete
all six placed in rightful soil
fewer choices left
The clock starts to run
the moment your first plant falls
how swift is your hand?
Select a plant, then tap cells
Two ways to play: Tap an empty cell then pick a plant, or select a plant below then tap cells to place it.
Cover image: Amanita muscaria flavivolvata by A. Gray / iNaturalist CC BY-NC
