Presidential Address. Carleton Rea. 19 
book has appeared dealing with this branch of mycology since 
Cooke’s ‘Handbook of British Fungi” in 1871. It must not 
however be imagined that their study has been neglected as the 
contrary is evidenced by the numbers of additions to the British 
list that Miss A. Lorrain Smith has annually recorded in our 
Transactions and I feel that we are very greatly indebted to her 
for the magnificent series of papers on our micro-fungi which 
have so greatly extended our knowledge of the British species 
and are an undying monument to her skill and knowledge of 
these groups. Mr A. D. Cotton and DrS. K. Sutherland have also 
given us invaluable papers on our Marine Pyrenomycetes (see 
Trans. Brit. Myc. Soc. 11, 92 and Iv, 147 and 257), and it is 
only in recent years that fungi have been discovered growing 
on our seaweeds. 
In 1915 Mr J. Ramsbottom gave us an exhaustive “ List of 
the British species of Phycomycetes, with a key to the genera”’ 
(see Trans. Brit. Myc. Soc. v, 304). He enumerates over one 
hundred and sixty species whereas the last British list, published 
by Massee in 1891, “British Fungi: Phycomycetes and Usti- 
lagineae,’’ included only about ninety British examples, and so 
we see that our knowledge of this group had almost doubled in 
this period. Mr Ramsbottom prefaced this list with a catalogue 
of the nine British species included in the Phytomyxineae or 
Plasmodiophoraceae, and the Acrasieae. It was only last year 
that Mr Norman G. Haddon made an addition to the former 
group by his interesting discovery of Tetramyxa parasitica Gobel 
which he found growing on Ruppia rostellata*. 
These last two orders belong to the Mycetozoa, but are not 
included in the magnificent and exhaustive Monograph of the 
Mycetozoa by Mr Arthur Lister and Miss Gulielma Lister which 
was published under the auspices of the British Museum in 
1894 and 1g1z. This Monograph is beautifully illustrated, 
has accurate camera lucida drawings of all the microscopic 
details of each species founded on an examination of the types, 
and is provided with elaborate keys to the genera and species. 
I onlyregret that no such accurate text-books have yet appeared 
to assist the student in the various branches of mycology. The 
appearance of this Monograph greatly stimulated interest in these 
minute animals and this is proved by the fact that the first edition 
of the ‘Guide to the British Mycetozoa’’ issued in 1895 only 
enumerated one hundred and nineteen species whereas the fourth 
edition, published in 1919, has increased this to one hundred 
and eighty-one, an addition of over half the original number. 
* We have since learned that this species was recorded by Mr D. A. Boyd in 
1887 from Chapelton, West Kilbride (Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, U, 
p. xxxvi (1888)). 
22 
