NOTES ON IIYMENOMYCETES. 
83 
at the close of a section a string of these species, the affinities of 
which neither himself, nor anyone else, could possibly guess from 
the scant materials at his disposal ; that he has done his best 
under untoward circumstances does not exonerate the original 
author from blame for his slovenly and slip-shod work, which was 
worth doing well if it was worth doing at all. 
A recent writer, as a sort of apology for his figures being 
different from others which have been published of the same 
species, remarks that climate must have some influence on Agarics, 
and that they may be expected to vary more or less considerably in 
different countries. Now, within certain limits this may probably 
be true, for we have heard fungus-hunters lament that Agarics 
will not grow constantly according to the books. Perhaps it is 
this variability, carried a little to extremes, which accounts for the 
eccentricities of Bavarian Agarics. It is, nevertheless, rather 
strange to our experiences in this country to find the section of an 
Agaric showing the gills rounded behind on one side and decurrent 
on the other, or broadly adnate on one side and free on the other, 
or with the gills twice as broad on one side as on the other, or on 
one side broadest in front and on the other broadest behind. Yet 
these eccentricities are manifested in Britzelmayr’s figures. It 
cannot, therefore, be surprising that so many species common with 
us are so metamorphosed that one cannot recognize them under 
the same name in this remarkable atlas. Surely it cannot be that 
all the blame is to be attributed to the variability of Agarics in the 
“ sunny south ; ” or, if so, then the atlas is of no use to us in this 
“ cold northern clime,” where Agarics grow more in harmony with 
what were described and figured by Fries. Seriously, these crude 
figures scarcely merit sober criticism, as they never could have been 
intended for practical purposes. 
Without pretending either that all our own figures in the 
“ Illustrations ” are equally good or typical, or that we have never 
fallen into error in the determination of species, we are bound to 
notice two or three which have come under condemnation. 
Agaricus ( Inocybe ) cincinnatus , Fr., “ Illustrations,” t. 425, is 
figured with rough spores, wherefore Bresadola concludes that it 
is wrong (p. 101), and that his species with smooth spores is the 
species of Fries, for which he calls M. Quelet to witness, because 
he “ was for many years in correspondence with Fries,” and, of 
course, should know ; the interpretation of which is — that Quelet 
considers A. cincinnatus , Fr., to be a species with smooth spores, 
and Bresadola, accepting it, denies that t. 425 can be the species 
of Fries — and this is all the evidence. On the other hand, we 
have before us in the Berkeley Herbarium about twenty- six 
specimens of this species from various localities, and all with 
rough spores. Our determination is, therefore, in accord with 
Berkeley, who, by-the-bye, is by far the oldest and most ex- 
perienced mycologist in Europe, and “ was for many years in 
correspondence with Fries,” even before the first edition of the 
