308 THK JOUllNAL OF BOTANY 



allies were longitudinally septate ; Fries realised that this discovery 

 necessitated the constitution of a new famil}'^ — the Tremellinei, but 

 included therein such genera as Tremellodon^ Auricularia^ Calocera, 

 and Ditiola. It would take us too far to consider the later develop- 

 ments of the knowledge of the structure of the basidium — knowledge 

 which was chiefly due to Tulasne and Brefeld. Tulasne's researches 

 on the germination of the teleutospore with the formation of a pro- 

 mj'celium led to the inclusion of the Uredinecd and Ustilaginece in 

 i\\e BasidiomycetcB by Winter and van Tieghem. The promycelium 

 of Tulasne is a heterobasidium in the terminology of Patouillard, a 

 probasidium in that of Brefeld, and a phragmobasidium in that of 

 van Tieghem, As is almost alwaj^s the case, systematic works have 

 lagged far behind in the adoption of modern views, chiefly because of 

 the difficulty of re-classification where there is insufficiency of in- 

 formation ; when knowledge of structure becomes more complete, the 

 burden of tradition can the more easily be cast off. 



" The present work is based chieiiy on the excellent system set 

 forth by N. Patouillard in his Essai taxonomique sur les families et 

 les genres Ilymenoniycetes, published in 1900. Since that date 

 several alterations and additions to this scheme have been made, due 

 to the investigations of the eminent mycologists, J. Bresadola, 

 E. A. Burt, H. Bourdot and A. Galzin, V. von Hoehnel and Lit- 

 schauer, and Rene Maire." Patouillard's first classification appeared 

 in his Les Hymenomijcetes d' Europe in 1887. In outline the classi- 

 fication as given in the volume under review is as follows : — The two 

 main divisions are the Homobasidise and the Heterobasidiae ; the 

 former possesses a simple usually elavate basidium bearing spores 

 which give rise to a m3'^celium on germination ; the basidium of the 

 latter is usually septate, either transversely, longitudinally, or ver- 

 tically, bearing spores which on germination produce sporidia. The 

 HomobasidifB include the parasitic Exobasidiineseand the saprophytic 

 Eu-HomobasidiineiB, which latter are subdivided into Gasteromyce- 

 tales, Agaricales, and Aphyllophorales (Angiocarpes, Hemiangio- 

 carpes and Gymnocarpes of Patouillard). The Gasteromycetales 

 include the species having the Iwmenium still surrounded at maturity 

 by a peridium; the Agaricales have the hymenium originally pro- 

 tected by a ring or volva or their analogues but fully exposed at 

 maturity, whilst in the Aphyllophorales the hymenium is exposed 

 from the first. The Heterobasidite are divided into Auriculariales 

 with transversely septate basidia, the Tremellales with longitudinally 

 cruciately divided basidia, Tulasnellales with simple basidia having 

 sterigmata which are very broad when young, and Calocerales with 

 cylindrical basidia terminated by two long, usually pointed sterig- 

 mata. (The Auriculariales include three parasitic suborders, Pucci- 

 iiiineiE, Coleosporilneae and Ustilagineae, which are not dealt with 

 here.) An introduction of eleven pages gives a succinct account of 

 the structure and classification of the Basidiomycetaj. This is 

 followed by a key to the divisions and genera of British Basidio- 

 mycetse occupying twenty pages which, by the use of different types, 

 clearly brings out the relations of the various orders, families and so 

 on. The characters used in the key are amplified in the body of the 

 work. 



