BESSEY: MYCOLOGY 235 



not be distinguished except by the use of a microscope. It was not until about 

 one hundred years ago that the ascus was clearly recognized as the cell within 

 which the spores were produced, whereas the basidium had the spores external, 

 or (as Fries considered it) extruded, from the apex of the "ascus." Indeed for 

 many years the word "basidium" was used in a double sense : in the way we now 

 use it as the structure upon which the basidiospores are borne (Berkeley, [1860] 

 used it in this sense) ; or synonymously for a conidiophore, bearing a cluster of 

 conidia at the apex, which is the usage in the earlier volumes of Saccardo's 

 Sylloge Fungorum for the conidiophores or sporophores, as they were called 

 later, of the Sphaeropsidales and Melanconiales. It was not until the publica- 

 tion of Volume XXII of the Sylloge in 1913 that the change to these latter 

 terms was made. 



A century ago the Reverend Miles Joseph Berkeley (b. 1803, d. 1889) was 

 the leader in taxonomic mycology in England and indeed in almost the whole 

 world. He wrote nearly four hundred papers on mycological topics and gave 

 names to approximately six thousand new species of fungi. As noted previ- 

 ously, at a time when most mycologists considered the microscopic fungi grow- 

 ing upon or within plants to be merely "exanthemata" and not independent 

 entities, he boldly maintained that Botrytis infestans Mont, (now known as 

 Phytoplithora infestans) was the actual cause of the terrible potato disease 

 which caused so much misery and death in Europe, especially in Ireland, in 

 the mideighteenth century. He saw clearly the close connection that ought to 

 exist between "vegetable pathology" and mycology. An account of his life and 

 work, especially in reference to plant diseases is given by Knorr in Phytopatho- 

 logical Classics, No. 8. Among his books may be mentioned Introduction to 

 Cryptogamic Botany (1857) and Outlines of British Fungology (1860). 



Berkeley's successor in the study of fungi in England may be said to have 

 been Mordecai Cubitt Cooke who lived from 1825 to 1914. He wrote the Hand- 

 hook of British Fungi (1871), Handbook of Australian Fungi (1892) and nu- 

 merous contributions to scientific journals. Perhaps his greatest service was the 

 establishment of the periodical Grevillea, of which he was the editor and chief 

 contributor for twenty volumes, from 1875 to 1892. Contemporaneous with part 

 of Cooke's life and mycological activity were Worthington G. Smith and George 

 Edward Massee (b. 1850, d. 1917). The latter was the first president of the 

 British Mycological Society, one of the most valuable societies that has been 

 established for the study of fungi. He was the author of British Fungus-Flora 

 (1892-1895), A Textbook of Fungi (1910), European Fungus Flora, Agarica- 

 ceae (1902), Monograph of the Myxogastres (1892), etc. Since then the number 

 of fungus taxonomists in Great Britain has grown rapidly. It is impossible to 

 mention more than a very few: Elizabeth M. Blackwell, Arthur Disbrowe Cot- 

 ton, R. W. J. Dennis, Arthur and Gulielma Lister, E. W. Mason, Arthur A. 

 Pearson, Thomas Petch, Carleton Rea, and Ethel M. Wakefield. 



The Commonwealth (formerly Imperial) Mycological Institute, in addition 

 to functioning as a center for the plant pathology research of the Common- 

 wealth, numbers among its staff workers who are carrying on a very large 

 amount of taxonomic mycology of the highest excellence. 



Joseph Henri Leveille (b. 1796, d. 1870) was one of the outstanding mycolo- 

 gists in France about one hundred years ago. He studied the nature of the 



