ENUMERATIO SYSTEMATICA FUiVGORUM 117 



Enumeratio Systematica Fungorum. By C. A. J. A. Oudemans. 

 (2 vols, large 4to, pp. cxxvi+ 1230, xix + 1069.) The Hague, 

 1919-20: Martinus Nijhoff. Price £6 6s. 



When Oudemans died in 1906 (at the age of 80) he left the 

 manuscript of the present work, completed up to 1899 ; after that 

 he occupied himself in annotating the work and preparing for the 

 press, from which two handsome volumes have now been issued. The 

 work' is what is known as a "host index," and gives a list of the 

 fungi occurring on European plants — " European " is interpreted in 

 the°very wide sense of any species occurring in Europe whether wild 

 or cultivated ; in like manner all fungi mentioned in literature as 

 occurring on the host are listed, even though they have not been 

 recorded° for Europe. Many host indexes have appeared previously: 

 most systematic books on microfungi indeed contain such indexes — ■ 

 extremely useful but liable to lead the unwary astray ; none, however, 

 have been anything like so full and complete as the present work. 



A preface of nine pages by J. W. Moll gives the history of the 

 compilation. The lavishness with which the work is produced is 

 indicated by the fact that this preface is repeated in French, German 

 and English, and is in itself full of redundancies. After Oudemans' 

 death it was decided to carry on the work at which he had laboured 

 for 25 years or more and to extend the references up to 1910. 

 E. de Boer collected the material of the period I S99-19 10, working 

 from 1909 till his death in 1916; L. Vuyck and J. J. Paerels then 

 took over the final arrangements of publication, the expenses of which 

 were borne by the Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen. 



The families of host plants are arranged according to Engler's 

 system, those of fungi by that of Saccardo. Genera and species are 

 arranged alphabetically. Full bibliographical references are appended 

 to the names of fungi, and only synonyms occurring in the quoted 

 papers are given ; hence a species occurring on different hosts has not 

 always the same list of synonyms. The parts of the plant are gone 

 through seriatim and a list of the fungi occurring on them is given in 

 systematic order; there is thus considerable repetition. A list of 

 authors, titles and exsiccata (2440) is added. 



The fifth volume is to be an alphabetical list : if this be as 

 complete as the body of the work, it will doubtless make the index 

 extremely valuable. As it is, an ordinary working mycologist,^ unless 

 he were at the end of his resources, would not trouble to use it as a 

 "pons asinorum," as which the preface suggests it may be regarded. 

 The typographical arrangement and printing leave nothing to be 

 desired — our only complaint is that the work is too lavish and 

 too large. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 



The Times of Feb. 22 contains a long notice of Louis Compton 

 Miall, F.K.S., who died at Far Headingley, Leeds, on the previous 

 day. He was born at Bradford in 1842 and became interested in 

 natural history at an early age; his work at first lay mainly in 

 geology and paleontology, but subsecmently extended to the study of 



