Notes on the Genus Taphrina. 
BY 
BENJAMIN L. ROBINSON. 
D URING the winter of 1886-7 I had an opportunity to 
study, from dried and alcoholic material, a number 
of American and European species of the genus Taphrina. 
As the literature of the group, particularly on the American 
forms, is rather scanty, the notes which I have been able to 
make may be of assistance to those who wish to continue the 
study of this interesting group. In the systematic examina- 
tion of European species much valuable aid has been derived 
from the papers of Sadebeck 1 and of Johanson 2 . These 
writers, it will be noticed, differ in the names they retain for 
the group ; and a brief explanation of the synonymy of the 
genus will not be out of place. 
The species, combined by Sadebeck, in 1883, into a single 
genus, were formerly classed in three closely related genera, 
Taphrina , Fries, Ascomyces , Mont, et Desm., and Exoascus , 
Fuckel. Of these genera the first is the oldest, having been 
described by Fries as early as 1815 under the name of 
Taphria , which, to avoid possible confusion with an insect 
genus, was in 1825 altered to Taphrina . In his paper just 
mentioned Sadebeck has preferred, although without stating 
his reasons, to retain for the combined genus the youngest of 
the three names, that of Exoascus , Fuckel. Johanson agrees 
with Sadebeck in thinking that all the species should be 
combined into a single genus, but, seemingly with much 
1 Untersuchungen iiber die Pilzgattung Exoascus , in Jahresbuch der wissenschaft- 
lichen Anstalten, Hamburg, 1883, pp. 93-124. 
2 Om Svampslagtet Taphrina , in Ofversigt af Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiens 
Forhandlinger, 1885, Stockholm, N : o I, pp. 29-47. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol, I. No. II. November 1887.] 
