NOTES ON THE MYXOMYCETES OF THE 
CURTIS HERBARIUM 
William C. Sturgis 
The Curtis Herbarium possesses a unique interest for Ameri- 
can taxonomists by reason of the fact that very many of the speci- 
mens are almost certainly co-types of species published by Berke- 
ley. The only element of uncertainty in this respect is the rather 
remote possibility that more than one species may have been 
present in the same original gathering; but in the case of the 
Myxomycetes this is so remote as to be practically negligible, and 
we may feel certain that in examining the specimens of this group 
in the Curtis Herbarium we are dealing in many cases with mate- 
rial used by Berkeley in describing his species. Some of the 
specimens appear to be now in better condition than the cor- 
responding material in the Berkeley herbarium at Kew. In 
the Curtis collection the specimens show only too plain evi- 
dence of having been brushed over, at some time, with an alco- 
holic solution of corrosive sublimate, and Miss Lister informs me 
that the same is true of the Berkeley specimens. Notwithstand- 
ing this treatment, however, most of the specimens are still fairly 
recognizable, and although Miss Lister’s observations on the ma- 
terial at Kew and in the British Museum are of the utmost possi- 
ble accuracy, a carefully annotated examination of the corre- 
sponding material in America may not come amiss to future 
students. This is the more desirable in that every examination 
entails a certain degree of loss of material, and though this loss 
may be partly compensated for by the preparation of permanent 
microscopic mounts, most observers, lacking any careful notes on 
the minute details of a specimen, prefer to secure such details for 
themselves from the actual specimen rather than to depend alto- 
gether upon a microscopic mount. Hence the depletion gradually 
proceeds to the vanishing point — a deplorable result where val- 
uable type-material is concerned. 
Through the courtesy of Dr. W. G. Farlow, I have been per- 
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