138 CLAVIS AGARICINORUM. 



here endeavoured to supply. It has been more or less perfectly in ma- 

 nuscript for the last seven years, and has always been used, by me in 

 determining new or critical Agarics. At the request of many friends, 

 I am induced to print it ; and it only remains for me to say, that the 

 characters given are either taken from the works of Fries or Berkeley, 

 or are from my own notes and observations. When the latter have 

 agreed with those of the above-mentioned authorities, 1 have not hesi- 

 tated to use their very words ; but I have minutely examined between 

 five and six hundred fresh specimens, ranging over the whole Order, 

 and in every instance I have made careful drawings of the plants and 

 their spores, together with dissections. I have also referred to, and 

 retained copies of, more than a thousand published plates, being nearly 

 every species referred to by Fries or Berkeley. The accompanying 

 outlines have been in every case drawn from nature, and the spores 

 of each species have been uniformly enlarged seven hundred diameters 

 with a camera-lucida. 



My ideas of the value and sequence of the genera and subgenera of 

 the Agarlcini differ very little from those of Fries and Berkeley. Had 

 either of these authors applied the test of an analytical key, I have 

 little doubt that, in regard to those small differences, they would have 

 coincided with me. The five great series of Agarics, termed, from the 

 colour of the spores, — 1, Leucosporl (white spores) ; 2, Hyporhodii 

 (pink spores) ; 3, Dermini (brown spores) ; 4, Pndell^ (purple spores); 

 and 5, Coprinarii (black spores),— are of the first importance in dis- 

 criminating species. It is remarkable that, whilst in the first group 

 we have in this country some two hundred and fifty species, the num- 

 bers grow gradually less through the pink, brown, and purple series to 

 black, in which latter there are only sixteen. 



After thus dividing the genus Agaricus, Fries proceeds to the sub- 

 genera ; but this I consider too abrupt, as each spore-group naturally 

 divides itself into three sections, thus : — 



1. Hymenophorum distinct from the fleshy stem. L, Plate C. fig. 2. 



2. Hymenophorum confluent and homogeneous with the fleshy stem. 

 P, Plate C. fig. 5. 



3. Hymenophorum confluent with, but heterogeneous from, the car- 

 tilaginous stem. Q, Plate C. fig. 7. 



The arrangement of the subgenera under these sections is shown in 

 the accompanying table (Plate CV.), and it may be considered in its 



