6t) 



ELEVENTH REPORT. 



Fries divided the genus Russula into five "tribes," a designation which 

 is no longer used as a subdivision of any group but the family, so we must 

 consider them as subgenera. Some have attempted to raise these sub- 

 genera to generic rank. As Peck* pointed out in his monograph of the New 

 York species, the subgenera establislied by Fries are very unsatisfactory. 

 Any rearrangement however of the Friesian subgenera have so far failed of 

 general acceptance. Massee divided the genus into two -groups, one with 

 mild taste the other with acrid taste; characters of no significance as showing 

 natural relationship. Schroeter, followed by Hennings in Engler and Prantl's 

 Pflanzen-familien, has referred all white-spored species to Russula Pers., and 

 all the species with some shade of yellow or ochraceous to a new genus. Rus- 

 sulina. This character, by itself, does not seem to me to have generic value. 

 Earle,** in his "Genera of North American Gill Fungi.", has raised all of 

 Fries' "Tribes" to generic rank as follows: 



CoMPACTAE — Loctarelis Ernie. 



FuRCATAE — Dixophyllmn Earle. 



Heterophyllae — Omphalomyces Bolt. 



RiGiDAE — Russula Pers. 



Fragiles — Russulina Schroet. 



Schroeter's genus has therefore been given different limits by Earle, but the 

 reasons for the change seem to be based on good grounds. Others ha^•e 



*Peck. N. Y. State Mus. Bull. 116, 190«5. 

 **Earle. Bulletin of the N. Y. Botan. garden. 



Vol. 5. P. 37.3, 1909. 



