^o Noinenclatitre of Fungi. [zoE 



The chief cause, however, of the synonomy of fungi and the one 

 least understood in other departments of science is the polymor- 

 phism of the species. It is probably quite well known to the world 

 at large that such a fungus as the " red rust *' of the grain fields 

 often appears under four different forms, three of which are capable 

 of reproducing the species, but it will hardly be believed, and is 

 certainly little to the credit of mycology that these forms, though 

 confessedly belonging to the same species, having all received gen- 

 eric names before their relationship was understood, the form- 

 genera are still kept up, and worse, continually added to. In the 

 Spheeriaceous fungi the relations of the forms not having been so 

 much studied, the matter Is still worse, witness the long lists of 



** new species" of Septoria, Phyllosticta, Glceosporium, etc., which 

 burden the pages of mycological publications. 



No one, I think, in the present state of our knowledge, not even 

 the authors themselves, will seriously attempt to justify such a 

 practice which is only excusable, if at all, in the case of some wide- 

 spread pest which forces itself into such prominence, that a name 

 even if certain to be a synonym has a certain convenience. 



The mere publishing of a mass of this kind of names, which 

 already probably amount in the aggregate to nearly one-third of 

 the enumerated genera and species, would do no particular harm, 

 except in the lamentable waste of time involved, if all these names 

 of imperfect forms, specific as well as generic, were certain of retire- 

 ment as fast as fully identified with their ultimates, but it has been 

 proposed with more or less following, to reckon these imperfect 

 forms in the question of priority, and the possible general adoption 

 of this pracdce which would unsettle the nomenclature of fungi for 

 something like a century to come, makes it highly undesirable to 

 add to their number. 



In the meantime the biological study of fungi offers a field wide 

 enough for all who are likely to be attracted, and in point of inter- 

 est, and of economic importance the life history of a single fungus, 

 carefully worked out and identified throughout its forms, by obser- 

 vation and cultures is worth far more to mankind than any number 

 of*' new species." 



[CoRRECTiox.— In article on Dodecatheon in March number, for 

 D. cniciferiim'' on pages i8 and 20, read D. cruc^atlml^ 



