PREFACE, 
OF the many interesting problems involved in the elu- 
cidation of the life-history of the various members of the 
fungus kingdom, there are none more important to the 
agriculturist than those connected with the development 
of the Uredinez and Ustilagineze. Not alone to the culti- 
vator of plants are these phenomena of interest, but also 
to the student of botany and microscopy. 
The work of Tulasne in France, and of De Bary in 
Germany, during the past thirty years, laid the foundation 
of our knowledge of the biology of these fungi. More 
recently the continued researches of De Bary, of Schroter, 
the late Dr. Winter, Wolff, Kithn, Magnus, Woronin, and 
Hartig in Germany, of Oersted, Rostrup, and Nielsen in 
Denmark, of Fischer Von Waldheim in Russia, and of 
Farlow and Thaxter in America, have so increased our 
information as to render necessary a re-classification of our 
British species. 
The object of the present work is to supply the British 
student, not only with improved descriptions of these para- 
sites, but also with an account of their life-history as far 
as this is at present known. 
