6 
BRITISH PYRENOMYCETES. 
Gen. 4. WINTERIA. Rehm . Perithecia rather soft, green or 
rufous. 
* Sporidia septate, pale. 
W. ordinata, Fr., Sacc. Syll. 3680 ; Hdbh. 2583. 
On naked oak wood. Little Heath, Essex. 
BERKELEY AND CURTIS TYPES. 
By M. C. Cooke. 
Some of the junior mycologists of the United States are com- 
mitting a dangerous mistake in their estimate of the Curtis herbarium, 
and the relation of the late Dr. Curtis to the species published 
under the joint names of Berkeley and Curtis. The cardinal error 
consists in regarding the Curtisian specimens as the types, which 
some are now insisting upon, but which they are not, and only a 
misapprehension of the signification of a “ type ” can have led to 
this assumption. Dr. Curtis collected the specimens it is true, but 
he did not describe them ; all the diagnoses were drawn up and 
published by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, in their joint names, from 
specimens communicated by Dr. Curtis. Hence the only legitimate 
type specimens are those upon which the diagnoses were constructed, 
and which are preserved in the Berkeley Herbarium. Wherever it 
may occur that specimens in the Curtis Herbarium do not accord 
with those in the Berkeley Herbarium no one can attempt to deny 
that the specimens in the Berkeley Herbarium must be regarded as 
the type, and no other. There cannot possibly be two types, and 
the genuine type must essentially be that upon which the diagnosis 
is founded. It is folly to introduce anything like “ spread-eagleism ” 
into a question of this kind, but far wiser to accept facts as 
they stand, and recognize the Curtisian Herbarium as containing 
presumed duplicates of specimens sent to Berkeley and constituted 
by him the types of certain species, at the same time admitting 
that when they differ this is not to be attributed to error in the 
diagnosis, but to an error on the part of Dr. Curtis, whom we 
know, from experience of specimens communicated to ourselves, 
did not pay sufficient regard to microscopical characters to be 
absolutely trustworthy. No one who knows anything of the history 
of the Berkeley and Curtis connection can dispute this statement 
of the facts, and we contend that consequently no fictitious value 
should be given to the Curtisian specimens, nor any preference 
accorded to them when they happen to differ from the only true and 
veritable ^e-specimens, upon which the diagnoses were based. 
Nothing could have originated such an error as we have intimated 
above, save an ignorance of the initial facts, which we have now 
endeavoured to set forth in a clear and impartial manner, in the 
hope that all misapprehension may thereby be removed. 
