THE NOMENCLATURE OF FUNGI. 



BY H. W. HARKXES5. 



The species of fungi brought together in the nine volumes of 

 Saccardo's Sylloge Fungorum number more than 31,000, and being 

 classified very largely by s^ore-characters, necessitated great 

 changes in arrangement, with the inevitable result of very numer- 

 ous synonyms. On account of the immense labor and time neces- 

 sary to a critical revison of the species, very little of such work- 

 was attempted, so that the chief value of the publication lies in its 

 bringing together in accessible form descriptions and references to 

 nearly all the species, and the works in which they were published. 



The species are probably much less numerous than is generally 

 supposed. The reproductive bodies of most of them are so minute 

 as to be invisible to the naked eye, and therefore widely dissem- 

 inated by the winds, are apt to be more climatic than geographical 



in their distribution. 



Mycologists are often but slightly acquainted with iDhanerogamic 

 botany, and are therefore not able to readily judge the degree of 

 relationship of the host plants, which fact is responsible for many 

 synonyms among the parasitic fungi, too many of the forms having 

 received names under the supposition that even if exactly alike, they 

 must be different species if found growing on different hosts. It is, 

 however, well known in the vegetable-feeding insects that while a 

 few are confined to a single species, the majority feed upon all the 

 plants of a genus, or even of a natural family, while a considerable 

 number are almost omnivorous. There is no reason to doubt that 

 a similar state of affairs prevails in parasitic fungi, and that many 

 of these slight differences in size and form which are held to consd- 

 tute very distinct species are really produced by differences of ven- 

 ation, succulence, etc., of the plants on which they grow. 



An attempt has been made by Dr. Farlow, of Cambridge, the 

 highest authority on this subject in America, to furnish a readier 

 means of comparison of presumably related or identical forms, by 

 means of a host index ^ which, however, has not met with the 

 appreciation it deserves, the average maker of species evidently 

 not relishing any work which tends to cast a doubt upon their 



validity. ______^__ 



. . 1^^^^ ■ "I" -■■■ ^^" ■ M_i^^^l ' ■! ■"""■ ■■ ■■■ 



*A Provisional Host-Index of the Fungi of the United States. Tart I, Polypetalx, 

 by W. G. Fallow and A. B. Seymour, Cambridge, i888. 



