BRITISH FUNGUS FLORA. 43 



come. His daring speculations and fertility of ideas, had they been 

 united with an equal share of patient observation, would have 

 raised him to a high place in the history of natural science. The 

 promised Volume III., dealing with Isolation and Physiological 

 Helection, will be looked forward to with a greater anticipation of 

 guidance now that this volume has shown an advance on its pre- 

 decessor. The questions discussed in the present one frequently 

 involve botanical questions, though they are of interest to us as 

 general biological questions ; but even the " hard-boiled botanist," 

 as he is amusmgly called, will find something to interest him, and 

 probably disagree with him, in chapter viii. on Characters as 

 Adaptive and iSpecific. 



G. M. 



British Fuiiffus Floni : a Classified Text-book of Mycology. By 

 George Massee, Vol. IV. 8vo, pp. 522. London : 

 Bell & Sons. 1895. Price 7s. Gd. 



During the last quarter of a century so many species of fungi 

 have been added to the British flora, that the genera founded by 

 the older mycologists have become too cumbersome, and have been 

 made to include species too far removed in structural affinity. This 

 is especially the case in those groups which require the use of the 

 microscope for their accurate diagnosis, and which, having been 

 examined only with the naked eye or a pocket-lens, are so briefly 

 and incompletely described, that it is often impossible to ascertain 

 what species the author had in view. 



Since the publication of the Handbook of British Fumji in 1871, 

 Dr. Cooke and other of our leading mycologists have taken in hand 

 different groups, and revised them as thoroughly as the state of 

 knowledge at the tune permitted. But many orders still remaining 

 in confusion, and tlie number of species still increasing, Mr. Massee 

 has undertaken, in the British Fungus Flora now in course of publi- 

 cation, the giganiic task of the revision and rearrangement of all 

 the species recorded as British. This work has now reached the 

 fourth volume, which treats of three out of the five families of 

 the Ascornycetes, viz. : the GymnoascacecB, the Hysteriacea, and the 

 Discomycetes. 



The Introduction contains a general description of the order, a 

 clear and concise description of the terms employed in describing 

 the different parts of the plant, and valuable hmts on the collection 

 and examination of specimens. This is followed by the systematic 

 arrangement, which, in accordance with the plan of the entire 

 work, commences with the least, and ends with the most highly- 

 developed group. This is no doubt in accordance with nature, but 

 may be confusing to the student who has always been accustomed 

 to work in the contrary direction, and whose herbarium is arranged 

 on the old lines. 



This part of the work commences with the small family of the 

 Gymnoascace(P., in which the spore-containing asci are naked, the 

 ascophore being absent. Then follow the Hysteriacece, in which 

 the fructification is enclosed in a well-developed ascophore ; and 



