Report on Botany. 



165 



it is not so with agarics. An abundant supply may occur 

 in a given locality one year, and not a single specimen be 

 found there the next year. Some species are like some 

 insects, appearing plentifully one season then disappear- 

 ing for several. Some are quite ephemeral, coming forth 

 during the night and decaying during the day. Others 

 appear only late in the season and continue but a few days, 

 so that it is not always convenient for the observer to be 

 at the right place at the right time. 



Besides, the minute size of many fungi brings into requi- 

 sition the habit of close attention in their study, a careful 

 training of the eyes to detect them, a sharp discrimination 

 of their essential characters and a most patient use of the 

 microscope, faculties that generally require considerable 

 exercise before they can be readily employed. The diffi- 

 culty with which specimens of fleshy fungi are preserved 

 must be added as an obstacle to be encountered by the 

 mycologist. Of all plants the Agaricini and some algse 

 are the only ones that can not be satisfactorily preserved 

 by drying under pressure. The former must be dried first 

 and pressed afterwards. Even then they lose much of 

 their color, character and beauty. If we would preserve 

 all their characters the spores must be gathered and a 

 colored sketch made of the fresh plant. To do this re- 

 quires considerable time, but toilsome methods of acquiring 

 and preserving a thorough knowledge of these things cease 

 to be irksome when the heart is in the work. 



The tinal and in some respects the most formidable 

 hindrance to the American student of mycology is the 

 want of a satisfactory text book or manual of our species, 

 to guide and aid him iu his researches. The nearest 

 approach we have to this desideratum is the Handbook of 

 British Fungi, but this being a manual of British species, 

 describes but a part of our species. Such descriptions of 

 species peculiar to this country as have been published, 



