32 
MODERN MYCOLOGY. 
enormous accumulation of mycological literature, frequently pub- 
lished in periodicals having a very local distribution, there are 
comparatively few omissions, and many of these are in reality 
owing to no fault of the author, but to the practice of describing 
species in private or official publications which cannot be purchased 
in the usual way ; as examples of such may be mentioned the many 
“ reports ” and “ bulletins ” emanating from the United States of 
America. Many of the imperfect references in the “ Sylloge 
although not all— are due to the highly reprehensible practice of 
altering the original pagination in extracts, and omitting to state 
the volume or even the source of the extract; such omissions, 
apparently insignificant in themselves, are certain sooner or later 
to lead to mistakes and consume much time, and need not neces- 
sarily recur if a minimum amount of thought and care is exercised. 
This same completeness has apparently led some mycologists to 
believe that what is not contained in Saccardo’s work must 
necessarily be new and undescribed, and act accordingly ; further- 
more, this idea is probably to a very great extent true, but then 
arises the question, who knows exactly what is described ? The 
diagnoses of many authors are more remarkable for brevity than 
lucidity, the result being that very often on the same page in the 
“ Sylloge” we find one species described in the space of two or 
three lines, and in such a vague manner that in the absence of the 
type specimen it is an absolute impossibility to form any idea as to 
the nature of the fungus the author had in view. Following an 
example of the kind just indicated, we come across a diagnosis 
containing all the information the present state of knowledge 
enabled the author to put into it. This heterogeneous mixture is 
not due to any laxity on the part of the author, whose primary 
object was to bring together all published descriptions of fungi ; 
and moreover, to our own knowledge, Saccardo has endeavoured 
and succeeded in obtaining revised descriptions of numerous 
species, where the original diagnosis was inadequate ; yet unfor- 
tunately, hundreds of absolutely useless descriptions of species are 
yet included in the work, presumably because, owing to the 
absence of type specimens, amended descriptions could not be 
obtained. As already suggested, a good plan would be to expunge 
the names of all species from the list of fungi where the descrip- 
tion is obviously imperfect, and no type specimen is known to 
exist, as it is as great an injustice to credit an individual with the 
founding of a species of which in reality he had no knowledge, as 
to deprive him of the credit of establishing a species undoubtedly 
his own. 
Ellis and Everhart appear to have realized some of the 
difficulties stated above, as in the introduction to “ The North 
American Pyrenomycetes,” probably the best book on systematic 
mycology ever published, we read as follows : “ In the 
present state of mycological knowledge, the classification 
(To be continued.) 
