General Features 301 



In the Amsterdam Congress of 1935 an amendment was proposed 

 by C. W. Dodge (Ann. Missouri Bot. Card. 21: 709-712. 1934) 

 whereby this could be accomplished, and the date 1821 adopted 

 as the starting point for the nomenclature of the fungi. Some 

 discussion followed but no action was taken. 



In 1821 S. F. Gray, in his Natural Arrangement of British 

 Plants, adopted a number of fungus genera which were used for 

 the first time with binomial combinations. One of these chanced 

 to be a genus of the operculate cup-fungi, the genus Scodellina, 

 the name having been taken up from Micheli. The first species 

 mentioned under this genus was 5. leporina, which would be 

 regarded as the type. When Fries' Systema Mycologicum was 

 published in 1822 no mention was made of this genus, and the 

 type species was listed as a species of Peziza. Years later, in 

 1869, Fuckel established the genus Otidea on the same type used 

 by S. F. Gray in 1821. If we applied the International Rules of 

 Nomenclature in this case, Scodellina of S. F. Gray, adopted in 

 1821 and u.sed in the present work, would need to be replaced 

 with Fuckel's genus Otidea, published 48 years later, and all this 

 merely because S. F. Gray used the genus a year before Fries' 

 Systema Mycologicum was published, and perhaps he was not 

 even aware of S. F. Gray's work. Under the circumstances it 

 would seem to the writer that the name Scodellina should be 

 validated for this genus by the Congress. 



Not only would a strict application of the International Rules 

 afTect some of the genera, as indicated above, but a number of 

 the specific names likewise would need to be altered. To illus- 

 trate — Fries in 1815 established the genus Rhizina with Elvela 

 inflata as the type. This was taken up in his Systema Myco- 

 logicum with Rhizina undulaia as the type species and Elvela 

 inflata Schaeffcr cited as a synonym. Just why he replaced the 

 name inflata with undulata is not apparent. However, Rhizina 

 inflata is the combination used in this work and also previously 

 used by Saccardo in his Sylloge Fungorum. If we wish to follow 

 the International Rules the name inflata would need to be 

 replaced by undulata, upsetting both priority and current usage. 

 Such a procedure would seem inexcusable. Of course such names 

 could be retained in nomina conservanda but this to be legal would 

 need action of the Congress which would require years. In 

 the meantime what is the poor monographer to do? 



