38 FETCH : REVISIONS OF 



practically no additions to the herbarium or to the hst of 

 species. The late Professor Marshall Ward, who came out to 

 investigate the coffee leaf disease caused by Hemileia vasta- 

 trix, worked out the development of the perithecium of 

 Meliola, but did not trouble about the species. Nietner (1872) 

 writing on the coffee disease mentions one new species ; and 

 some specimens of Diplodia apparently on seeds sent from 

 Ceylon have been described by F. Tassi (1899). Between 

 these dates a few of Thwaites' specimens found unnamed in 

 Berkeley's herbarium have been described (in Grevillea) by 

 Cooke and Massee. Holtermann worked in Ceylon during 

 1895, and his results here and elsewhere have been published 

 under the title " Mykologische Untersuchungen aus den 

 Tropen " (1898), but they afford very little from a systematic 

 or distributional standpoint. He states that during his 

 fourteen months' stay in the Tropics (Ceylon, Java, Borneo), 

 he saw four hundred European species of fungi ! It is to be 

 regretted that he did not examine them and estabhsh their 

 identity. 



At the present time, if the name of a Ceylon fungus is 

 required, the modus O'perandi is as follows. In the first place 

 it must be compared with Berkeley's descriptions of Thwaites' 

 species and the original specimens and drawings, in order to 

 find out what Berkeley then named it , and liow many times he 

 named it. Then a search must be made through the descrip- 

 tions of Gardner's species to see whether it was named in 

 1846. If the specimen happens to be a Polyporus, there must 

 be a further reference to Konig's species. This process 

 generally gives ultimately several names for each species, 

 and the synonymy can in some cases be further lengthened 

 by considering Cesati's descriptions of the specimens collected 

 by Beccari. All doubtful cases are reserved, and no decision 

 arrived at until a large number of specimens have been 

 examined. In this way the synonymy of the species, as far 

 as Ceylon is concerned, may be definitely determined, though 

 progress is extremely slow. But this gives no idea whatever 

 of the number of times it has been named on specimens from 

 other, countries. It seems to me that the only possible way 

 in which any definite knowledge can be evolved out of the 



