Presidential Address. Carleton Rea. 2I 
ninety-one species of fungi and forty-five species of mycetozoa 
were met with although many of the members were detained 
there for a week longer owing to the railway men’s strike. The 
chief cause of this poor record was undoubtedly the early advent 
of severe night frosts, which killed the mycelium after it had 
begun torun. At the autumn foray held at Baslow, Derbyshire, 
from the 27th of September to the 2nd of October, 1909, under 
the Presidentship of Professor M. C. Potter, the Society was 
greatly honoured by the attendance of several distinguished 
French mycologists including Professeur René Maire, Mons. E. 
Peltereau and Mons. and Mme. E. Simon. It was due to their 
kind assistance that many important additions were made to 
the British fungus flora. These included Omphalia Allenii Maire, 
named in honour of my friend and fellow-member Mr W. B. 
Allen, one of the most able discriminators of species in the 
Basidiomycetae, and Leptonia Reae Maire, named in honour of 
my wife as a tribute of his admiration for her paintings of our 
fungi. Over five hundred and thirty-three species of fungi and 
forty species of mycetozoa were passed in review during the 
week, and Dr René Maire subsequently created a new variety 
of Leptonia serrulata (Pers.) Fr. for the form that exactly 
corresponded with the painting by Berkeley erroneously repro- 
duced as the type in Cooke’s Illustrations of British Fungi, 
No. 355, t. 333, and based on specimens collected at Spondon 
in Derbyshire, calling it var. Berkeley: Maire in honour of that 
distinguished mycologist. 
I found on referring to our Transactions for the exact date 
of this meeting, that Professor M. C. Potter delivered a very 
instructive Presidential address on “Bacteria in their relation 
to plant pathology” (see Trans. Brit. Myc. Soc. 11, 150). Pro- 
fessor Potter pointed out that many plant diseases were caused 
by these parasites, in many other cases they were found in 
association with parasitic fungi, and that it was often very 
probable they were the primary cause of the infection. Professor 
H. Marshall Ward in an early Presidential address (see Trans. 
Brit. Myc. Soc. 1, 124) insisted on the importance of these 
organisms in converting xylose into some other form of sugar 
more easily assimilated by fungi. We all know that many 
orchids and heaths can only be successfully raised from seeds 
that at an early stage are brought into contact with the sym- 
biotic, endotrophic mycorrhiza, and that some observers allege 
that the presence of bacteria is essential to the germination of 
the spores of some species of Coprinus and mycetozoa. The 
study of the bacteria causing plant disease is a very important 
and interesting one, but I fear that it is impossible for many 
of our members to take up this branch of mycology because 
