508 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 482. 



meeting of interested citizens of San Diego 

 and vicinity September 2Y, 1903. 



The by-laws as adopted designate the pur- 

 poses of the organization and in part are as 

 follows : 



" The organization shall be called the 

 Marine Biological Association of San Diego, 

 for the purpose of securing the foundation 

 and endowment of a scientific institution to 

 be known as the ' San Diego Marine Biological 

 Institution.' 



" The general purposes of the institution 

 shall be to carry on a biological and hydro- 

 graphic survey of the waters of the Pacific 

 ocean adjacent to the coast of South Cali- 

 fornia, to build and maintain a public aqua- 

 rium and museum and to prosecute such other 

 kindred undertakings as the board of trustees 

 may from time to time deem it wise to enter 

 upon. 



" The founding of the institution having 

 been perfected and its endowment secured, the 

 whole or such part thereof as may in the judg- 

 ment of the trustees seem best shall, under 

 such conditions as the trustees may impose, 

 be transferred to the regents of the Univer- 

 sity of California, to become a department 

 of the university coordinate with its already 

 existing departments. 



" The officers of the association shall be a 

 president, vice-president, scientific director, 

 secretary and treasurer. In addition there 

 shall be a board of trustees consisting of seven 

 members, three of whom shall be the president, 

 vice-president and scientific director." 



Officers were elected as follows : 



President — Homer H. Peters. 

 Vice-President — Miss Ellen Soripps. 

 Scientific Director — Professor W. E. Ritter. 

 Secretary — ^Dr. Fred Baker. 

 Treasiirer — Julius Wangenheim. 

 Additional Directors — E. W. Scripps and James 

 MaoMullen. 



At a winter meeting of the board of trus- 

 tees funds were guaranteed for three years 

 which will enable the station to continue its 

 work and expand it somewhat, perhaps to the 

 extent of keeping the station in partial opera- 

 tion throughout the year in charge of a resi- 

 dent naturalist or fellow during the interim 



between the summer and winter operations. 

 A public spirited patron of the laboratory has 

 oifered to grant the laboratory the use of a 

 nineteen ton schooner, the Loma, former pilot 

 boat of the port, equipped with power, for 

 purposes of collecting, sounding, dredging, 

 etc., and also to erect a temporary building 

 for accommodation of the laboratory which 

 may be located at La JoUa, fifteen miles from 

 San Diego on the ocean front. The perma- 

 nent location of the buildings will not be de- 

 termined until a thorough exploration of sev- 

 eral possible situations shall have been made. 

 Charles Atwood Kofoid. 



the necessity fob reform in the nomencla- 

 ture of the fungi.* 



The nomenclature question is almost en- 

 tirely one of expediency. If the prevailing 

 custom in making plant names has led to the 

 establishment of a nomenclature that satis- 

 factorily fills the requirements for accuracy 

 and stability, 'and if it points out unfailingly 

 the proper procedure where our increased 

 knowledge of any given group of plaiats neces- 

 sitates the modification of our ideas of generic 

 limits, then any change in traditional methods, 

 or any attempt to substitute other generic 

 names for those now commonly used, would 

 be a folly so great as to approach lunacy. Let 

 us see what the facts are as regards the fungi. 

 Fries, in his classical work ' Systema My- 

 eologicum,' the final volume of which was 

 published in 1829, recognized 243 genera of 

 fungi. In the * Sylloge Fungorum ' of Sac- 

 cardo, the eight original volumes completed in 

 1889 contain 1,685 genera and 31,927 species. 

 Supplementary volumes have appeared from 

 time to time, the last in 1902, bringing the 

 total number of recognized genera up to 2,348 

 and the species to almost 50,000. The treat- 

 ment of the fungi by Schroeter, Lindau, Hen- 

 nings Dietel and Fischer in Engler & 

 Prantl's ' Pflanzenfamilien ' was completed in 

 1900. The usage here differs radically from 

 that of Saceardo in many respects and the 

 number of genera accepted is only 1,811, or 

 537 less than are recog-nized by Saceardo. A 



* Read before the Botanical Section of the 

 American Association at the St. Louis meeting. 



