May 1904 ] Notes from Mycological Literature 157 
numerous lobed processes — playing in fact an all-important part 
in the life of the germinating conidium — the fungus might be 
able to produce a few mycelial hyphae and one or two conidio- 
phores, as the result obtained by the first haustorium. . . The 
evidence that is gradually accumulating on the subject of the rela¬ 
tions between host-plants and parasitic fungi leads us to the con¬ 
clusion that immunity and susceptibility are due to constitutional 
(physiological) peculiarities and not to any structural ones/’ 
F. S. Earle presents in telling language, in Science 
for March 25, 1904, the Necessity for Reform in the Nomencla¬ 
ture of Fungi. The scores of economic botanists in this country 
should be as much interested in this matter as the taxonomists 
themselves and lend their support toward stability in nomencla¬ 
ture. The skirmishing and preliminary, often futile attempts, 
duly visited by abundant derision, have cleared the sky and the 
path is now plainly marked. Professor Earle shows conclusively 
by abundant examples from Saccardo and from Engler and 
Prantl, that we have at present no widely “prevailing usage.” 
Speaking of the earlier writers, he says: “They had no idea of 
the type of a genus or a species in the sense in which we use the 
word to-day. Their hype,’ in so far as they had one, was a 
mental concept; and yet if we are to prevent this endless shifting 
of generic names from one group of plants to another, it becomes 
necessary to tie down these ancient concepts to the material basis 
of a single species. . . Any attempt at reform based on a 
method devised for the purpose of having names’ can only end by 
adding to the existing confusion. Let us then nerve our minds 
to the point of seeing not only any, but, if necessary, all of our 
most favored names sacrificed to consistency, and unite in adopt¬ 
ing the simplest and most direct code of rules that can be agreed 
upon. When this is once done and its provisions are carried out 
in good faith we shall by the one cataclysmic effort have placed 
the nomenclature of our science on so firm and stable a basis that 
we need no longer dread the appearance of each succeeding con¬ 
tribution to mycological knowledge on account of the changes in 
names that have been so constant and so annoying an accompani¬ 
ment to each forward step in the past.” 
Professor Oudemans and Mr. Koning reported, in June 
1903 (Koniklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam), 
a Sclerotinia hitherto unknown and injurious to the cultivation of 
Tobacco, namely, S. nicotianae Oud. et Koning, of which also 
an account is given of the investigation and experiments, some 
biochemical work on the same, and a diagnosis latina. A colored 
lithographic plate illustrates the species. In a supplementary 
account (in August) larger cups are reported: -1.4-5 mid- wide 
and 0.2-0.3 deep, the stems 1.5-9 m iH, in length. 
