THE GENUS INOCYBE. 



While Fries (in »Hymenomycetes Europæi«) only describes 

 45 species oflnocybe (as here understood), the number mentioned 

 in Bataille's »Flore analytique des Inocybes d'Europe« is about 

 100. This extraordinary increase (from 1870 — 1910) is partly 

 explained by the fact, that just about the time of publication 

 of »H. E.« the use of the microscope was introduced in this 

 field of mycology. And one of the first results of this was that 

 a good many species of Inocybe, which hitherto it had been 

 almost inpossible to distinguish, were easily recognised by their 

 different type of spore: smooth or nodulose-stellate. 



But the discovery of this reliable and practical means ot 

 identification made great havoc to the whole system of classi- 

 fication. In cases where an old polymeric species was seen 

 really to comprise 2 or 3 distinct ones, it was almost impossible 

 to make out which of these new species could rightly claim the 

 old name. Thus in later works we find the old names / scabelht, 

 I. carpta, I. fastigiata, I. hiulca etc. attached to as well smooth- 

 spored as roughspored species in a most bewildering way. — 

 When later on the characteristic difference of the cystidia was 

 also introduced in the diagnoses as a new and valuable means 

 to distinguish species which have a superficial likeness to each 

 other, this new step in advance in many cases increased the 

 confusion in such a way, that now one almost feels inclined to 

 throw the table over end and start afresh with entirely new 

 names for all the species that can be distinguished by the means 

 now available. 



This however is out of the question ; but occasionally — f. 

 inst. in the case of »/. rimosa« — I deem it advisable entirely to 

 drop the old name; because it evidently was not a specific but 

 a collective name, embracing several common species. »I. rimosa« 

 of the ancient authors to my mind includes /. brunnea, I. Cookei, 



