170 Transactions British Mycological Society. 
important plants, for which the basis already exists in Vol. x1II 
and the subsequent volumes of Saccardo’s Sylloge Fungorum, 
but which requires to be amplified in the direction followed in 
Oudemans’ Enumeratio Systematica Fungorum. The latter only 
deals with the European flora, includes all plants, economic or 
not, and is of very limited value to, say, a worker in the tropics, 
as will be readily realized when we find only a single entry under 
the family Zingiberaceae, which includes such important crops 
as ginger and turmeric, both subject to several serious diseases. 
In addition to supplying references we must be prepared also 
to furnish abstracts and, in certain cases, to lend out original 
papers. This will be of great value to isolated workers and I 
attach great importance to it. 
The next main line of work is to organize a system for the 
prompt identification of injurious fungi. In this respect my- 
cologists have not at present as good facilities as those possessed 
by entomologists. Specialists in particular groups are not as 
readily available to us as to them; we are fewer in number and 
the amateur who specializes in a particular group is greatly to 
seek when once we descend below the higher fungi and enter 
the groups to which the majority of the injurious species belong. 
The organization here will have to be to some extent inter- 
national as it is in entomology, and we must aim at being able 
to refer a species in a particular family or genus to the recognized 
authority on that group—when there is one. If, as I hope and 
expect, very large collections of fungi from the tropics and 
elsewhere are sent in, the Bureau can provide such material as 
to make it very attractive to systematic mycologists to specialize 
in certain families. 
Arising out of this branch of the work is the comparative 
study of pathogenic fungi. This should be an important feature 
of the work of the Bureau and there is urgent need for the 
critical examination, with culture work, of such tropical path- 
ogens as the Phytophthoras, Diplodias, Glomerellas, etc. When 
this work is under way there is no reason why it should not be 
developed into a culture-supplying organization, primarily to 
deal with tropical and sub-tropical forms. The chief difficulty in 
this is the want of suitable culture rooms at the Bureau, but a 
recent very helpful offer from the Lister Institute has suggested 
a way out. 
Gradually there should be at the Bureau a very good her- 
barium of parasitic fungi. Such a collection will be essential for 
our own systematic work—for when all is said and done there 
will be a great deal of systematic work which the Bureau will 
have to undertake itself—and will be invaluable for reference 
purposes. Duplicates will be kept in as large quantities as 
