86 
MODERN MYCOLOGY. 
The person who can suggest a good practical substitute for the 
present custom of placing the author’s name after a species would 
confer a boon on botanists, the value of which would become more 
and more obvious as time rolls on. 
The modern reformer, burning with shame at the injustice done 
to the fathers of mycology, commences work with the motto 
palmam qui meruit ferat uppermost in his mind, compares new 
books with old ones — examination of specimens being deemed 
superfluous — and soon becomes thoroughly convinced in his own 
mind that Agaricus palus, Mass. (1893), is no other than Agaricus 
dubius , Xen. (1730); further examination of books shows clearly 
that the fungus in question is certainly not an Agaric at all, but 
the type of a new genus to be called Tomsonia — after a mycological 
friend — and as there is but one species in the genus, and that one 
very typical, the old specific name is inapplicable, and gloriosa 
suggests itself ; in due time a full description of Tomsonia gloriosa , 
Brey, along with another pew genus and species simultaneously 
discovered by the friend and called Breyia superba , Tom., appear 
in print, the poor old fathers of mycology along with palmam qui 
meruit ferat having faded from the memory of Brey and Tomas. 
The above sketch is not an exaggeration, but typical of numer- 
ous instances where the modern reformer simultaneously adds to 
synonymy and confusion, without advancing the study of mycology 
in the lea>t possible degree. 
Returning to Saccardo’s “ Sylloge,” we have no hesitation in 
saying that the worst feature of the work is the wholesale way in 
which new genera are established on the slightest amount, or in 
numerous instances without the slightest amount of justification. 
The method of procedure appears to have been as follows : — All 
available specific diagnoses belonging to a particular group having 
been brought together, certain features were selected as constitut- 
ing a generic character, and diagnoses embodying all or the mean 
of such characters selected out ; by this method the great bulk of 
species were disposed of, but in every group there occurred one or 
more genera consisting of species whose original diagnoses were of 
such a nature as to forbid their incorporation into any preconceived 
Scheme ; such is apparently the nature and origin of many of the 
new genera established in the “ Sylloge.” 
The above method of procedure might perhaps be justifiable on 
the part of a person who had previously acquired a good know- 
ledge of the group under consideration, the outcome of work done 
with actual specimens ; and with the further qualification that the 
collection of diagnoses to be manipulated were individually fairly 
complete ; but as already stated the material at Saccardo’s com- 
mand was not of this nature, but the very opposite, and the found- 
ing of genera or even rearrangement of species, based on such 
meagre and heterogeneous evidence, is, to say the least, not in 
accordance with modern ideas of science, and hence whilst some 
genera established in the " Sylloge ” are excellent, and will doubtless 
