LETTER No. 55. 



By C. G. LLOYD, Cincinnati, Ohio, March, 1915. 



OVERHOLTS' POLYPORACEAE OF OHIO. 



There appeared about one year ago in the Annals of the Missouri Bo- 

 tanical Garden (March, 1914), a paper by L. O. Overholts on the Polypo- 

 raceae of Ohio. We have seen notices of the paper, but as a separate 

 issue was not sent to me, and as I was not favorably impressed with a 

 previous paper by the same author, I did not take the trouble to go over 

 to the library and look it up. It has therefore really just come to my atten- 

 tion and I was agreeably surprised to find it to be a very valuable and true 

 presentation of the subject, and I am gi-atified that Mr. Overholts has gotten 

 back into the realms of rational mycology. I presume this is due to the 

 conservative influence of Professor Burt. In his previous paper he was 

 no doubt largely influenced by Professor Bruce Fink, who does not know 

 enough about fungus to form an opinion of the merits of such things, and 

 Overholts' previous nomenclature was about as intelligible as a Chinese 

 laundry ticket. 



The present paper I consider the best and most valuable paper on the 

 classification of our native Polyporaceae that has yet been printed. The 

 names used are the usually accepted names for the plants, and the articles 

 impressed me as being well and accurately drawn up. They are original 

 descriptions, drawn in most cases from the growing plants, and if I were 

 publishing a work on American Polypores I should probably use them bodily, 

 of course, giving due credit. Mr. Overholts records and describes 105 spe- 

 cies, and while the paper is restricted to those occurring in Ohio, the fungi 

 are such widely distributed plants that it is practically a manual of the 

 fungi of the United States. There are relatively few of our native plants 

 that are not included. Mr. Overholts has employed the names that are cur- 

 rently used in American mycology, corrected in some cases as a result of 

 recent historical studies, and it is gratifying that so many species finally 

 take definite shape so the names mean the plants. If mycology ever reaches 

 the stage where a binomial will have some definite meaning, then the 

 greater part of the trouble will have passed away. The excellent work that 

 is being done by Professor Burt at the Missouri Botanical Gardens on the 

 Thelephoraceae and by Mr. Overholts on the Polyporaceae gives promise 

 that this may some day be reached. 



Of the 105 species that Mr. Overholts has described we would have no 

 criticisms or suggestions to offer as to most of them. There are a few 

 species for which Mr. Overholts has used American names that are exactly 

 the same plants as grow in Europe, and while Mr. Overholts has given the 

 current American names, having, of course, no way of knowing regarding 

 the foreign plants, it is only a question of time when in our American my- 

 cology they will acquire the 'same names as in Europe. We append a list 

 of a few corrections we would make, as follows: 



1 



UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 



