366 



MYCOLOGY, NEW AND OLD. 



GEORGE MASSEE, F.L.S., V.M.H. 



Up to comparatively recent times, morphological or structm-al 

 characters, obvious to the unaided eye, or aided by a pocket- 

 lens, were solety used in the discrimination of species included 

 in the large group of fungi known as the Basidiomycetes. 

 Fries, the founder of modern mycology, invariably used such 

 characters, and also insisted on the necessity of taking the 

 mean of several features or characters presented by different 

 parts of the plant for embodying his conception of a species. 

 There are certain features that stand out in most species 

 which, when once mastered, cannot be mistaken. This 

 standpoint, of course, can only appeal to those mycologists 

 who are familiar with the fungi as seen in their native habitats,, 

 and who, by experience gained under such conditions, have 

 learned the direction and range of variation exhibited by each 

 species. From this standpoint it obviously follows, that 

 mycologists of the above nature, are not particularly im- 

 pressed by what are known as type specimens, but would rather 

 be inclined to assert that no one specimen embodies all the 

 features that constitute the species under consideration, hence 

 such mycologists are inclined to be more charitable in their 

 view as to what constitutes a species, than are those whom I 

 may designate as belonging to the new school of systematic 

 mycologists. 



To the latter class belong those who, at a rule, have had con- 

 siderable experience in botanical work generally, as conducted 

 in a modern laboratory, where the microscope has to be utilised 

 on all occasions If, as sometimes happens, men so trained,, 

 turn their attention to systematic mycology, the microscope, 

 from beginning to end, is their sheet-anchor, .and dried or 

 spirit specimens constitute the material on v/hich their argu- 

 ments and deductions are based. Life, with its potentialities 

 is a factor, due to circumstances, left out of consideration, 

 and the dried and mummified individual specimen becomes 

 a type presenting features as sharply defined as the acknow- 

 ledged fixed points used in chemistry and physics, and the 

 mycologist of this stamp proceeds as if he was solving a mathe- 

 matical problem. If a specimen does not conform with the 

 type in all paiiiculars, it is something else, and in the majority 

 of instances has to be made a new species. This is true, even 

 when more- than one factor is taken into consideration. But 

 some members of the modern school work on narrower lines. 

 There are not wanting those who swear by the size of the spores 

 alone, other factors being sometime noted as a rider. Others 

 again, consider that the true secret as to what constitutes a 



Naturalist, 



