MATURE 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1871 


COOKE’S HANDBOOK OF BRITISH FUNGI 
Handbook of British Fungi. By M. C. Cooke, M.A. 
8vo., pp. 982, tab., fig. 408.. (London: Macmillan and 
Co., 1871.) : 
HE study of Fungi in this country has gradually 
attained an importance which is sufficiently indi- 
cated by the appearance of the present much-needed work, 
comprising as it does the characters of no less than 369 
genera and above 2,800 species. The works of Bolton 
and Sowerby at the latter end of the last and the com- 
mencement of the present century had laid a solid foun- 
dation for a study which, however, attracted but compara- 
tively few students. There was, however, no genera 
treatise on fungi, in our own language, to which referencel 
couldbe made, till 1821, when Gray’s “ Natural Arrangement 
of British Plants” gave the English botanist an opportunity 
of becoming acquainted with the labours of Nees von 
Esenbeck and other continental botanists,a very important 
share of the labour having been undertaken by Dr. J. E. 
Gray. A storm of opposition was raised against it 
because of its recommendation of a natural system, a 
recommendation which was then thought sufficient to jus- 
tify an exclusion from well-deserved honours; a virulent 
attack was made in the British Critic, and the work fell 
in consequence, notwithstanding its merits, almost dead 
from the press. Some ten or fifteen years later, Sir W. J. 
Hooker undertook the completion of the English Flora, 
which had not gone beyond the higher Cryptogams, his 
own “Scottish Flora,” Greville’s ‘Flora Edinensis,” and the 
“ Scottish Cryptogamic Flora” having already done much 
for fungi, when the preparation of the part of the work 
relating to those plants was entrusted to the Rev. M. J. 
Berkeley, who had made an especial study, especially of | 
the higher Fungi, and had already discovered the true 
structure of the hymenium, which had, however, long be- 
fore been indicated under Agaricus comatus in the “Flora 
Danica.” From the time of the publication of his velume, 
continual accessions were made, especially by Mr. C. E 
Broome and Mr. G. H. K. Thwaites, who has since done 
so much for this interesting tribe as well as in the higher 
orders of plantsin Ceylon,and which have been incorporated 
in a series of memoirs in the “ Magazine and Annals of 
Natural History,” either singly by Mr. Berkeley or jointly 
with Mr. Broome ; nor must we omit Mr. Currey’s very 
important contribution to the knowledge of our British 
Spheerize, of which it is scarcely possible to overrate the 
value as regards the characters of the fructification. It 
was then proposed by Messrs. Reeve to publish Outlines 
of British Fungology, confining, however, the description 
to those species which did not require much microscopic 
aid, but adding a list of all the known species so far as 
the existing state of information went. Mr. Broome and 
Mr. Currey, with several others, have persistently carried 
on the study of these plants, the knowledge of which is 
every day advancing, and as Mr. Berkeley’s work was 
confessedly imperfect, we have great reason to be thankful 
to Mr. Cooke for undertaking the very laborious, and, we 
fear, scarcely remunerative labours which he has so suc- 
cessfully accomplished. No student of Fungi can be 
VOL. IV, 

Be 

without the two volumes, and they certainly ought to have 
a place in every botanical library of the slightest preten- 
sion. The work has throughout been conducted in the 
most conscientious way, and infinite pains have been 
taken to verify the obscurer species, in which the author _ 
has had the ready assistance of those botanists in this coun-— 
try who have paid most attention to these difficult plants. 
Mr. Cooke has very wisely been content to follow the 
more generally established systems without attempting 
any new arrangement, which at present would only entail 
needless obscurity. He has, we think, very judiciously 
given the characters of all species which, with any degree 
of justice, have been considered as autonomous ; though 
more than reasonable doubts have been thrown on many 
of them by the labours of Tulasne, and the real nature 
of such genera as Cytispora, &c., had been long since 
previously indicated by Fries. When all the different 
stages of development have been thoroughly studied, the 
number of genera will doubtless be much restricted, as it 
has been already by the elimination of mere mycelia. It 
would, however, be premature to pass by numbers of 
Sphzronemei, Mucedines, &c., because some of them have 
been clearly ascertained to be mere conditions of asci- 
gerous species. We are glad, too, that Saprolegnic are 
“included ; though this very curious set of plants has been 
less studied in this country than on the Continent. The 
occurrence of zoospores is now no obstacle to their being 
considered as conditions of Fungi, since we have distinct 
zoospores in such genera as Peronospora, and the whole 
tribe of Myxogastres. . It is but justice to state that Mr. 
Cooke has had some valuable assistance amongst the 
higher Fungi from Mr. W. G. Smith, who is so well known 
as a botanical artist, and whose communications cannot 
fail to have materially enriched the work, the execution of 
which throughout has been beyond all praise, in which 
should be included the copious index It is not to be 
supposed that in so extensive and. difficult a subject a 
critical eye could not find a few errors, but they are few in 
number and of little importance. The gravest to which 
we might advert is that in the characters of several of the 
genera proposed by Tulasne, there;is no mention of the 
secondary forms on which several of them are established, 
though they are not omitted where species are concerned. 
This is, however, a matter of comparative unimportance, 
and a few spots on which the finger might be placed do 
not detract from the general merit of the work, which we 
cordially recommend on many accounts to our readers, 
assuring them that the moderate price at which it is pub- 
lished could scarcely be better employed in any other 
scientific direction. 


OUR BOOK SHELF 
Matter for Materialists. By Thomas Doubleday. (Lon- 
don : Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer ; Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne:; Andrew Reid, 1870). 
The Beginning: tts When and its How. By Mungo 
Ponton, F.R.S.E. (London: Longmans, Green, and 
Co., 1871.) 
THIS age is essentially a materialistic one, but few are 
found who adhere to systems of philosophy based on the 
assumption that matter has no real existence. Mr. 
Doubleday, however, is one of the few, and he has pub- 
s 
