THE AGARICACEAE OF TROPICAL 

 NORTH AMERICA— I 



William A. Murrill 



This series of articles is based upon original studies of fresh 

 specimens in Cuba, Jamaica, and Mexico, supplemented by large 

 collections obtained in many parts of tropical America by Britton, 

 Earle, Underwood, Shafer, Wilson, Brace, M. E. Peck, Small, 

 Harris, C. L. Smith, Broadway, Williams, Howe, Duss, Wright, 

 Mrs. Britton, Mrs. Earle, Miss Marble, and others. 



The collections at Kew, Paris, Berlin, Upsala, Stockholm, and 

 Copenhagen have also been examined with special reference to the 

 gill-fungi of our tropics, and representative specimens have been 

 compared with type material wherever it was found. The diffi- 

 culty of preserving specimens of these plants, the lack of proper 

 field notes, and the meager and scattered attempts previously made 

 to gain any comprehensive knowledge of our tropical gill-fungi 

 have resulted in much confusion of species and many synonyms. 



Certain common and easily preserved species will be found in 

 nearly every collection, often under a new name. Variations in 

 these strong, prevailing types, which easily run together when 

 examined in hundreds of specimens in the field, loom to specific 

 proportions in a herbarium several thousand miles distant. It 

 may be argued that these varieties are as distinct as many good 

 species ; but such abundant and widely distributed types are a 

 law unto themselves, transcending geographical and varietal 

 bounds in their exuberance and defying all attempts to segregate 

 them at the present stage of their evolution. Every mycologist is 

 acquainted with such specific types in most groups of fungi, and 

 every one knows that they are hopeless, some of them even cross- 

 ing generic and family lines ! 



The region here designated as tropical North America includes 

 Mexico south of Zacatecas, Central America, and all of the 

 islands lying between North America and South America, with 



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