THE TENDENCIES OF SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 
259 
It cannot be an answer to this argument that the sporidia are 
imperfect when they do not bear the evidence of imperfection, 
and it is only from experience that the ultimate character of 
the sporidia can be known. In the face of this fact it is mani- 
festly unsound to base classification on features which require 
first of all that it should be determined what is the life-history 
of the plant, and whether it has arrived at the final stage of its 
development, before its genus can be fixed. From this as well 
as previous illustrations it may be urged that, not only is there 
a tendency in the systematic botany of the day unnecessarily 
to multiply genera, but also to construct them upon unsound 
principles. 
References might be made to other orders — as, for instance, 
of such genera as Uromyces , Capitularia , and Puccinella — all 
which are so identical that no sane mycologist would think of 
separating them from Uromyces , unless it might be by way of 
excuse for attaching his own name after them, and calling them 
new species. The most recent systematic arrangement of the 
Myxogastres also demonstrates with what extraordinary facility 
a batch of new genera can be extemporised from old materials. 
It would be difficult to estimate with any certainty the 
number of recognized genera in fungi. The second edition of 
Lindley’s “Vegetable Kingdom” enumerated 544; these were 
increased to 813 in the third edition (1853), and in the inter- 
mediate twenty-two years the increase may be fairly estimated 
as bringing the total number to not less than 1,000, exclusive of 
a great many that are acknowledged to be spurious or syno- 
nymous. The same or even greater difficulty exists in the 
determination of the number of species. Fries, in his “ Epi- 
crisis ” (second edition), gives characters of 2,778 species of 
Hymenomycetes found in Europe. Hence it may fairly be 
concluded that the total number of species of Hymenomycetes 
is not less than 5,000, leaving a less number for the rest of the 
world, inclusive of North America, which is very rich, and the 
large number of Polyporei , &c., found in tropical countries. 
The number of good species of the Discomycetes which we have 
recently had occasion to study closely and critically is not less 
than 2,200, and the residue of the Ascomycetes will not be less 
than double that number. Consequently we think that it is a 
very safe estimate to place the number of species of fungi at 
20,000. With such a number of plants it may readily be 
imagined with what concern those who are intimately attached 
to their study regard innovations which are calculated, not only 
to increase their labour to an alarming extent, but threatens to 
bring the whole of that branch of the science into inextricable 
confusion. The same fear is beginning to take possession of 
Lichenologists, and those who have devoted themselves specially 
