I had great hopes, for Klincksieck has a pretty good business head and I 

 thought he would get out something practical. 10 I am very much disappointed 

 with the book as it was issued, being only a series of small sample colors 

 with numbers. Numbers give no idea of 'colors that can be expressed to another, 

 though perhaps convenient for keeping private memoranda. You can, however, 

 send ten cents to A. E. Wilde Co., 28 E. Seventh St., Cincinnati, Ohio, and get a 

 sample book of kindergarten color papers that will answer the same purpose. 

 What we need in mycology is a good book with color names, for colors have 

 names, though I think there is no other subject in general less known or as uncer- 

 tain, unless it is fungus names. Because we do not know them is no reason why 

 we should not have a book to learn them. The chrysanthemum lovers are more 

 practical than mycologists. They publish a book 11 with ample color samples 

 with names of the color in English, French, German, etc. Each color is given 

 a distinctive name, a name taken from use in commerce or the silk industry, or 

 chemicals, or flowers, or the house-painter, or some other recognized definite 

 source. 



The house-painters have clearer ideas as to colors than mycologists have,, 

 for the house-painter can tell his workman to paint a house a dark terra-cotta 

 and the workman will know exactly how to mix the paint. A mycologist can 

 write that his spores are ferruginous, and the reader will -not know whether 

 they are a dirty yellow or a chocolate brown. It is unfortunate that this 

 chrysanthemum book is such a cumbersome, inconvenient and expensive affair. 

 Otherwise I think it would have a large sale among the mycologists where 

 there is a genuine need for a good color book. In future when I wish to 

 express myself in definite color' terms I shall use this chrysanthemum book. 

 They are at least definite, and carry some idea of their meaning with them. 

 While such names as Mars yellow, Quaker drab and blood brown may not 

 seem very scientific and perhaps can not be translated into pidgin Latin, they 

 have a definite meaning, and convey some idea even to those who do not have 

 the book. I admit I know very little about colors, and in the past have used- 

 such terms as "reddish," "yellowish," etc., that have no real meaning. With 

 the aid of this chrysanthemum bock I hcpe to be a little more definite in future. 



PLEUROTUS NIDULANS IS FETID. 



We recorded several years ago that this plant is fetid, but have seen no 

 other " reference 3 to it in any other publication. We found it in Sweden a 

 number of times and. it certainly has a very nauseous odor when fresh. 

 It has various local names. For many years it masqueraded in the United 

 States as Panus dorsalis, and even recently Kellerman perpetuated this joke. 

 Then Peck -discovered it had pink spores and called it Claudopus nidulans. 

 A wonderful discovery was also made by Quelet in France, that it had "citrin- 

 incarnat" spores and was a Crepidottis. Furthermore, with a date dictionary 

 and Fries' synonyms he unearthed one of Paulet's old names, jonquilla, hence 

 the plant is often called in France, Crepidotus jonquilla. Mycology ought to 

 introduce the Bertillion system to identify the various aliases under which fungi 

 pass. In connection with the record that the plant is fetid, it is interesting 

 to know that Panus foetans described from Switzerland is also the same thing. 



10 This article was written with th - hope of interesting Monsieur Paul Klinck-ieck in the ne-ds, 

 of mycologists for a color book with col r names. He was a practical man, and could have given us a 

 practical book. We were very much shocked to learn of Monsieur Klinckrieck's death which 

 occurred before the article was printed. 



Repertoire thr-Couleurs, I.ibrairc Agricok, Paris, 1905. Price, about five dolfars. 



440 



