32 CLASSIFICATION OF TTREN0MYCETE8. 



that when men, however highly educated, suffer themselves to bo 

 canght in a stream, they are rapidly overwhelmed, and how devo- 

 tion to a single idea may warp the judgment and confiscate all 

 other considerations. 



The question which should be determined satisfactorily is, espe- 

 cially with regard to the Ascomycetes, what are the safest, soundest, 

 and most natural groups in which, as genera, the species should be 

 classed for purposes of study ? Should the vegetative system be 

 adopted as the basis, or should the reproductive, or should both be 

 combined as much as possible ? We do not hesitate to express our 

 conviction that the vegetative system shoiild be adopted in conjunc- 

 tion with the reproductive, but that the latter should be subsidiary 

 to the former. Our strongest objection to the modern carpological 

 arrangements is that they adopt the reproductive almost abso- 

 lutely, and ignore the vegetative, except when it harmonizes with 

 the mathematical idea. If it were not so we should never see 

 Sj^hcen'a phomatosj'iora placed next to SjjJkb? ia Jimbriata, or Dia- 

 try2:>e stigma close to Sjjhceiia inillepunctata. It cannot claim to be 

 even a satisfactory carpological system, which recognizes as nearest 

 allies SjJhccria jmtomimwi and Sporormia inter7nedia. Surely such 

 affinities (?) must have been inserted as a satire on a carpological 

 classification, for whoever has seen the magnificent sporidia of 

 Schweinitz's American S. ptitami7nim and knows the diminutive 

 quadrilocular dissilicnt sporidia of the dung Sphcsria called Spo- 

 roimia minima, and Sporormia intermedia, mxisi confess that if such 

 indication of affinities is all that we are to expect from a " Carpo- 

 logical disposition," it is a most decided and indubij;able failure. 



Professor Saccardo has expended considerable labour in the pro- 

 duction of his " System," which was foreshadowed by Notaris in 

 1844, and since applied by Fuckel, Winter, Nitschke and others 

 in Germany. All have had sonie share in unsettling the old 

 method, without ensuring unanimity in the new, for each has his 

 own method, the only point of agreement being a Carpological 

 basis, other coincidences following accidentally. We could have 

 wished that so much industry, energy, and persistency had been 

 expended in a better direction, and it is with regret that we feel 

 compelled to oppose our esteemed friends both in Italy and Ger- 

 many. Far be it from us to depreciate the labours of Continental 

 mycologists, who, without a single exception, have always been 

 ready to afford us every assistance in their power, most promptly 

 and courteously, whenever we have had occasion to appeal to them. 

 Nevertheless we recognize it as a duty, albeit not a pleasant one, 

 to protest against the introduction and extension of a false basis 

 of classification. 



