Vol.43 TORREYA July 1943 



The Importance of Taxonomic Studies of the Fungi* 



Frank D. Kern 



The naming and classifying of living organisms has been going on for 

 centuries. It has been well said that "a large part of our thinking about living 

 things is bound up with some system of classification." Another writer has 

 pointed out the fact that we depend much upon classification in our general 

 experiences. "It is the innate propensity of active minds," he says, "to form 

 species, i.e., successively to make distinctions, to point out similarities, and then 

 to assemble the things that are alike into their kinds. It applies to everything 

 from chemical elements to college fraternities." 



The recognition of the need of names for plants dates from the days of 

 Pliny, the Roman naturalist, and Dioscorides, the Greek physician, in the first 

 century of the Christian era. Plants could not be discussed without names. 

 They could be named, however, without classification. They could be classi- 

 fied, also, without a conception of phylogeny. In other words, nomenclature 

 deals with names which may or may not be arranged according to a system 

 of classification ; and classification deals with groups which may or may not 

 indicate relationships. Many biologists, on the other hand, attempt to arrange 

 groups on a basis of similarities, which they believe to be expressions of actual 

 relationships. It is of particular interest today to note that the modern 

 development of these aspects of botanical science has been made during the 

 years since the founding of this Club. The first real progress in working out a 

 universal system of nomenclature was made at an International Botanical 

 Congress in Paris in 1867. A natural system of classification, although early 

 recognized as desirable, has made its most progress since the theory of evolu- 

 tion provided a basis for phylogenetic interpretations. Darwin's Origin of 

 Species, just a few years earlier, furnished the evolutionary concepts which 

 soon became so significant in taxonomy. 



Even a cursory examination of some of the early attempts to classify the 

 fungi is sufficient to reveal that the results were most general in nature. 

 Bauhin, in the days of the "herbals" purported to bring together all the plants 

 known to him and to all those who preceded him (Pinax Theatri Botanici, 

 1623). The concept of the genus as a group of species had not then become 

 definitely established. In the group which he called Fungus were included 81 



* Read at the 75th Anniversary Celebration of the Torrey Botanical Club at The New 

 York Botanical Garden, Tuesday, June 22>, 1942. Contribution from the Department of 

 Botany, The Pennsylvania State College, No. 137. Publication authorized on July 6, 1943 

 as paper No. 1185 in the Journal Series of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment 

 Station. 



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