68 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



to the genus Poria. The first of these was described in 1873. At 

 that time and for many years thereafter mycologists apparently 

 failed to grasp the idea that the higher fungi include a very large 

 and varied assortment of closely related species. As a consequence 

 they were apparently possessed of the idea that superficial char- 

 acters were sufficient for the determination of species in most if 

 not all cases. 



As time has passed the need of microscopic characters in certain 

 groups of fungi has been more and more emphasized until we are 

 in danger of going too far to the other extreme and underemphasiz- 

 ing the importance of external form, coloration etc. In an efifort 

 to overcome the former of these tendencies the writer has under- 

 taken a thorough investigation of the material left by Peck as 

 representing the species he described. It has not been the writer's 

 intention to pass judgment on the validity of these species but 

 merely to supplement Peck's often meager descriptions with addi- 

 ditional facts concerning characteristics not recognized by him. 



The need of such a paper will be appreciated by those who have 

 tried to fit their collections to the descriptions left by Peck. In 

 some instances his description occupies less than three lines of 

 printed matter. Most of them contain no mention of spores or 

 other hymenial structures and these are often among the most 

 useful characters that a plant will show. In preparing the paper 

 it has been necessary to decide to what extent detail is necessary, 

 and where general statements will suffice. In this the writer has 

 been guided by his own experience in matching collections in the 

 herbarium. Characters which have proved useless have been 

 omitted. For example, it has been deemed unnecessary to state 

 the thickness of the subiculum in microns when millimeters or 

 fractions thereof will suffice. Neither is the thickness of the 

 dissepiments nor the diameter of the tubes given in microns. The 

 former is too much a question of age and maturity and is covered 

 in sufficient detail in the statements regarding the size of the tubes 

 in millimeters. It is possible, however, that forty years hence the 

 descriptions here presented by the writer will be deemed as inade- 

 quate as are at the present time those published by workers forty 

 years ago. 



The presentation of each species conveniently divides itself into 

 four sections. 



I Peck's description is reproduced exactly as it was published 

 and is headed Original description. The reason for this is two- 



