Nt)MAD irN(iI. 



Ill 



Xenouochns-.. 

 Plini<'niicliuin. 



Tilletia. 

 Ustilai,'o. 

 Thecaphora. 

 Tuburciuia. 



PUCCINIACEI. 



Triphi-af^miuiii. 

 Puccinia. 



C^OMACEI. 



Urocystis. 

 Uromyces. 

 Coleosporium. 

 Melampsora. 



Gyiiiiiosporaii^iuiii. 

 Podinoma. 



Cystopus. 

 Uredo. 

 Trichobasis. 

 Lecythea. 



(ECIDIACEI. 



Rcestelia. CEcidiiim. Graphiola. 



Periderniiuni. Endophylluni. 



The Pucciuiacei or "Brands" were distiuguished by haviujt; com- 

 poiiud spores — that is, spores divided by septa iuto two or more cells ; 

 the Cseomacei or " Sniuts and Rusts " were distinguished by the free 

 spores being mostly simple or one-celled ; while the fficidiacei or 

 " Cluster-cups " were characterised by their simple spores being con- 

 tained in a cellular envelope or peridium of various forms. A beauti- 

 fully simple plan, well adapted for the purpose which it has hitherto 

 served and will continue to serve, as a kind of Liunean system in 

 miniature, an index in which the names of one's finds may be readily 

 discovered, but not representing in any way the natural relations of 

 the objects. In the first place the system was broken — even in 

 England— by the admission of a large number of the Cseomacei among 

 the Pucciniacei, as when the " i-ust " of corn, Trichohasis nibi[io-vera, was 

 set down under I'uccinia rimiiiiiiis, the "corn mildew," of which it was 

 considered merely an early phase ; or again, when the round simple 

 spores of the early stage of Phragmidiuin are classed with the long 

 three to six-septate spores of the later form. But the condition of the 

 Cseomacei was worse. It included the bunt and smut of corn 

 which have simple spores ; the Buttercup smut and other allied 

 species (Urocystis) which have compound spores ; the Coleosporia and 

 Melampsorse, each of which produces spores of two distinct kinds, 

 just as Puccinia does, and demands, by every rule of classification, to 

 be ranked with it ; and, finally, it contains a genus (Cystopus) which 

 has absolutely nothing in cominon with the others, and is, in point of 

 fact, closely allied to a genus, Peronospora, the Potato-fungus, which 

 is itself classed with dissimilar species in another group, the Hypho- 

 mycetes. The CEcidiacei was the only order which approached the 

 requirements of a rational system. 



It is true that a great deal of what is now known was unknown 

 fifty years ago, while some facts have only recently been discovered; 

 but it nevertheless remains that British mycologists must plead guilty 

 to clinging obstinately to an obsolete system, which has long been 

 abandoned on the Continent. The true interpretation of the facts 

 has been published for many years, but we in England have heard 

 nothing (at least among mycologists) but murmurs about " mad 

 fancies for change," " startling vagaries in vogue in certain quarters," 



