PREFACE. 



THE present Bibliographical Index owes its origin to the fact that 

 in 1874, when the writer returned from Europe where he had spent 

 a couple of years in the study of mycology, he found it impossible to 

 ascertain what species of fungi were known to occur in the United 

 States. With the exception of the two monographs of Schweinitz, 

 issued in 1822 and 1834, the accounts of North American fungi 

 were scattered through numerous papers in the publications of 

 learned societies, many of them difficult to obtain, in various State 

 reports and in horticultural and agricultural journals. Berkeley and 

 Curtis' Notices of North American Fungi, begun in Grevillea in 

 1872, were then in progress of publication, but the student who 

 desired to find out what was known of our fungi was forced to spend 

 a large amount of time in hunting up in the larger libraries the 

 many scattered and often obscure works from which information 

 could be obtained. The writer then determined to bring together 

 all references to North American species in the form of a card 

 catalogue, not an easy matter at that date. At the same time an 

 authors' catalogue was started including the titles of all the works 

 used in forming the catalogue of species. The authors' catalogue 

 was printed in 1887 as Bibliographical Contribution No. 25 of the 

 Library of Harvard University under the title, " A List of Works on 

 North American Fungi," by W. G. Farlow and William Trelease. 

 This included 653 titles, and was followed in 1888 by a Supplemental 

 List, by W. G. Farlow, being Bibliographical Contribution No. 31, 

 bringing up the number of titles to 756. The authors' catalogue has 

 been continued and a new edition is in preparation, including the 

 parts previously issued with additions up to 1905. 



As originally planned the Index included as species of North 

 American fungi all those known north of Mexico, but in recent years 

 the species of our southern border have proved to be so intimately 

 connected with those of the West Indies, Mexico and Central 



