148 Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History. 



istics on which so much reliance is now placed, so that in the 

 absence of type specimens it is difficult or impossible to ascer- 

 tain to what species their names should be applied. Besides 

 this, what we now know to be different forms of " fruit " of 

 the same species, were formerly regarded as wholly distinct 

 plants belonging to widely separated genera; as each of these 

 forms received a name it now becomes necessary to choose one 

 from two, three, or even more, to designate the species and re- 

 duce the others to synonyms. In the case of the Uredineae there 

 are in numerous species four spore-forms, now known as " te- 

 leutospores,'' " uredospores," " aecidiospores," and " spermatia.'' 

 from which one must be selected as the mature or final " fruit,'' 

 and its name taken for the species as a whole. But as no pro- 

 cess of fertilization has been discovered for any of these spore 

 productions, there is a difference of opinion among investigators 

 as to which ought to be considered this mature or final form. 

 Sachs, whose judgment must be highly respected, adopts the 

 aecidium stage as that most probably the result of some kind of 

 fertilization, while others, equally competent, believe the teleu- 

 tospores as the name indicates are the * final and, if any, 

 the fertilized bodies. Sachs, therefore, inclines to call the com- 

 mon rust of wheat JEcidium graminis^ instead of Puccinia 

 yraminis, the name used by all authorities up to this time. 

 Winter, in his recent revision of Rabenhorst's Pilze (Fungi), 

 attempts to apply rigorously the law of priority of names to 

 whatever form of the species the first name was given, and 

 most naturalists making a specialty of any other department of 

 nature would doubtless commend his endeavor. But there are 

 very serious difficulties in the way. While we may accept as 

 proved that certain J^cidia are genetic forms of known Puc- 

 ciniae, in the great number of cases such relation is simply sup- 

 posed to exist. Shall we revise our nomenclature on the basis 

 of a supposition ? In the writings of early mycologists the 

 descriptive characteristics following a name are often equally 

 applicable to several species as we now know them. In the 

 absence of herbarium types, shall we guess at the plant held in 

 hand when the description was drawn up? Not unfrequentlv 

 the oldest name is given to what was deemed a variety, and 

 later another name by another or the same author is adopted 



