206 HINTS FOR 'FURTHER STLDY 



well-preserved collection, if properly prepared in the first place, 

 and properly cared for in the second, will outlast several genera- 

 tions of botanical workers. 



After a student has become familiar with a series of typical 

 fungi,* the preceding pages should enable him to locate the speci- 

 mens of the more conspicuous saprophytes and parasites he may 

 collect, as far as the genus, and in the case of ordinary edible forms 

 as far as the species. But the ambitious student will not stop here ; 

 for this reason the leading systematic papers, many of which can 

 be consulted only in the larger libraries or botanical laboratories, 

 have been freely referred to in the text. It will probably be some 

 years before we will have descriptive manuals for our fungi as for 

 our higher plants, and their value when prepared will depend in no 

 small degree on the careful notes taken by the individual workers 

 all over the country, provided the results of their work are properly 

 vouched for by carefully preserved material deposited in one or 

 more of the great botanical centers where future systematic studies 

 will be largely carried on. Until we can have manuals of our 

 own we must depend for the determination of species j- on Sac- 

 cardo's Sylloge Fiingoruin and the references in its successive 

 supplements. For those who read German, the portions of Raben- 

 horst's Kryptogamen-Flora von Deutschland, Oesterreich, und der 

 Schweiz, relating to Die Pilze, will be valuable particularly for the 

 Phycomycetes and Ascomycetes ; Massee's British Fungus Flora 

 (4 vols.) and Stevenson's British Fungi (2 vols.) will be useful for 

 many of the Basidiomycetes especially. In all these European 

 manuals, however, it must be remembered that only a portion of 

 our flora is in common with that of northern Europe and many 

 of our species have no place at all in the European manuals. 



But the name of the fungus and its position in the system are 

 only means to a further end. While a familiarity with plants is 



'This series ought at least to include the common black and green 

 moulds, a powdery mildew like that on the lilac or willow, a rust, a mush- 

 room, a puff-ball, a cup-fungus, and a Xylaria or other of the Sphaeriales. 



f The student of parasitic fungi will find the following work valuable : 

 Farlow & Seymour, A provisional Host Index of the Fungi of the United 

 States. Pp. 218. Cambridge, 1888-1891. 



