ITtEFACE TO SECOND EDITIOX. 



rilHE first edition of this Work having for some time been 

 JL out of print, and the demands of the public encouraging 

 the publisher to proceed with a new edition, I have added, in a 

 second Appendix, descriptions of all the species discovered in 

 Britain since 1865, so far as they relate to the Orders included 

 in this volume. The success which has attended the sale of this 

 Work, and the number of fresh observers it has brought into the 

 field, has greatly tended to the necessity for a second Appendix. 

 A larger number of observers, over a still more extended area, 

 will, it is hoped, add further to our list ; by increasing the 

 number of known species. Hitherto one great cause of the 

 paucity of students of Fungi in this country, especially of the 

 Microscopic forms, has been the want of text-books on the sub- 

 ject, containing descriptions of the species, with figures illus- 

 trative of the genera. Although this little volume only partly 

 supplies that want, by including the species fomid on living 

 plants alone, it has already proved of service ; this and its 

 companion volume, " Introduction to British Fungi," being 

 (with but one exception) the only books on Fungi which have 

 passed into a second edition in this country ; a fact which 

 appears to prove that they have succeeded in furnishing a 

 desideratum, and in giving an impetus to the study. It is 

 hoped that similar results will follow the publication of this 

 new edition, 



M. 0. COOKE. 



