i6 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



Mr Carleton Rea, the latter of whom has been its guardian 

 angel ever since. May I add that many of us academic workers 

 owe a deep debt of gratitude to workers like Mr Rea who of 

 their never-failing kindness help us persistently out of our 

 systematic difficulties? I feel confident therefore that the 

 mycological work of amateurs will be as warmly welcome in 

 the future as in the past. The amateur is the salt of the earth, 

 for it is he alone who is impelled to work by the love that is 

 in him. Science is in danger of becoming over-professionalised, 

 and it is only the spirit of the amateur that can preserve the 

 freshness of outlook essential to the intellectual health of the 

 professional investigator. At the last annual foray, the dis- 

 cussion initiated by Dr Butler indicated many of the ways in 

 which amateur workers could be of assistance in promoting 

 the study of fungi, and with the co-operation of both kinds of 

 workers, British mycology has a rich harvest before it. 



The Origin and Phylogeny of the Fungi. 



I propose now to say a few words about the origin and 

 phylogeny of the fungi. I know that in discussing this subject 

 I am treading on dangerous ground, but I trust you will bear 

 with me in my heterodoxy. I have just come from the meeting 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at 

 Hull where there has been considerable discussion on the subject 

 of Evolution. Anent this discussion Dr D. H. Scott made the 

 remark that the day had passed when biologists thought they 

 knew a great deal about the phylogeny of organisms; in his 

 striking phrase, "phylogeny eludes us." This does not mean 

 that nothing is known about the race-history of the main 

 groups of animals and plants, but that we know far less than 

 was thought only a few years ago. Notwithstanding this change 

 in outlook there is still prevalent in the teaching of elementary 

 botany a view of the origin and development of the fungi, to 

 the exclusion of other possibilities, which I venture to combat. 

 Besides, it is well occasionally to take a broad survey of the 

 group of organisms with which we are dealing, for like all other 

 students of detail, we are sometimes apt to miss the wood for 

 the trees. The fungi are a remarkable group of organisms of 

 which we, as mycologists, are rightly proud, but their unique 

 characters are often overlooked, and many botanists look upon 

 them as a race of degenerate organisms, poor anaemic creatures 

 that have lost the power to photosynthesise. Let us examine 

 this standpoint somewhat critically. Nowhere else in the plant 

 kingdom is there an immense group which is looked upon as 

 having been derived from green organisms by the loss of 



