INTRODUCTION 



The writer's interest in the inoperculate cup-fungi coincides 

 with that of the operculates. In fact, when these studies were 

 begun as a student in Iowa, the separation of the cup-fungi or 

 Discomycetes into the operculate and inoperculate forms had 

 not come to be generally recognized although the importance that 

 should be attached to the dehiscence of the asci in the classifi- 

 cation of the Discomycetes was announced by Boudier more 

 than twenty years before (Grevillea 8: 45. 1879.). The steps 

 leading up to the present work will be discussed here in some 

 detail. 



Although the operculates may seem to have absorbed most 

 of the writer's attention up to the present time, some of the first 

 novelties encountered in student days were of the inoperculate 

 group. One of these will be mentioned here. In the spring of 

 1905 the writer's attention was called to a small disco appearing 

 under the trees of wild cherry across the river from the University 

 of Iowa, the region at that time consisting of wooded hills and 

 open fields constituted one of our favorite collecting grounds. 

 Careful search revealed many of the small discs each attached 

 by a stem to a partially buried seed of the wild cherry, Pniniis 

 serotina. This was at once recognized as belonging to the genus 

 Sclerotinia as at that time known. Being unable to find any 

 record of a Sclerotinia on this host, in his youthful enthusiasm 

 the writer transmitted a specimen to Dr. H. Rehm of Germany, 

 then the outstanding world authority on this group of fungi. 

 When Dr. Rehm later reported this to be a new species and 

 named it in honor of the collector Sclerotinia Seaveri (Plate 85) 

 it was an event of no small importance in the writer's young life 

 and furnished an added incentive to continue the researches 

 started on this group of fungi. 



A few years later G. M. Readc of Cornell University pub- 

 lished a paper (Ann. Myc. 6: 109 115. 1908.) entitled "Prelim- 

 inary notes on some species of Sclerotinia' in which he listed the 

 writer's namesake and recorded with it the conidial stage which 

 had later been discovered and recorded as Monilia Seaveri. In 

 the meantime both stages of the fungus had been collected at 

 various places in New York State. Reade at the same time 



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