deat 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
By Carleton Rea, B.C.L., M.A., Hon. member 
British Mycological Society, etc. 
A BRIEF REVIEW. 
Twenty-five years ago the British Mycological Society was 
founded by a small band of enthusiastic mycologists at Selby, 
on the 19th of September, 1896. It was felt that the formation 
of such a club would fill a long-felt want. At that date there 
were comparatively few students of our fungi, mycologists were 
often unacquainted with each other, they had no place of 
meeting, and there was no journal exclusively devoted to this 
branch of botany. Hitherto these wants had been met to some 
extent by the fungus forays of the Woolhope Club, and the 
mycological papers published in Grevillea. These forays were 
inaugurated by Dr H. G. Bull in 1867 at Hereford and were 
continued annually with great success until his decease on the 
31st of October, 1885, but afterwards languished and finally 
ceased in September, 1892. The last number of Grevillea was 
published in June, 1894, on the completion of the twenty-second 
volume. A circular letter was subsequently sent out in the 
following November addressed to the leading mycologists and 
Natural History Societies and about fifty members were enrolled 
in response thereto. These included Professor J. W. Carr, 
Messrs W. N. Cheesman, A. Clarke, Rev. F. K. Clarke, Messrs 
M. C. Cooke, Charles Crossland, Rev. Canon J. M. Du Port, 
Mr W. H. Edwards, Revs. W. L. Eyre, W. Fowler, H. P. 
FitzGerald, Messrs T. Gibbs, T. Hey, Professor T. Johnson, 
Dr P. Magnus, Dr Philip Mason, Mr George Massee, Dr E. 
McWeeney, Mr J. Needham, Dr H. G. Peacock, Mr Greenwood 
Pim, Dr C. B. Plowright, Professor M. C. Potter, Dr N. Rehm, 
Mr J. B. Robinson, Miss E. A. Rose, Mr J. Rose, Professor E. S. 
Salmon, Messrs M. B. Slater, H. T. Soppitt, Professor J. W. H. 
Trail, Dr Harold Wager, Professors H. Marshall Ward, F. E. 
Weiss and the Dublin and Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Clubs. 
Some of these names still appear in our list of members whilst 
others have filled the presidential chair; and we all are 
greatly indebted to the Rev. W. L. Eyre for his kind assistance 
in bearing the cost of many plates for our Tvansactions. Mr 
George Massee in his presidential address to the society at its 
first meeting in September 1897 in Sherwood Forest, dealt with 
“Mycological progress during the last sixty years” and therein 
referred to the valuable work done by Berkeley and the brothers 
