plates are misleading - is self-evident to any one who will compare the 
various plates issued and said to represent the same plant in Europe. We 
could cite many cases to demonstrate where it is impossible for the 
plates to represent the same plant. When you know a plant you often 
recognize a widely different plate as being intended to represent it, and 
consequently make mental allowance for the aberrations of the artist. 
But it is more difficult to reverse the operation, and when you know a 
plate to reconcile a doubtful plant to it, for you have the probability 
before you all the time that the plate was never intended to represent 
that plant. In this connection it is a fact that the only man who has 
ever worked with American agarics in the field, and who was familiar 
with growing plants of Europe, referred ninety-three per cent, of the plants 
he met in this country to European species. East winter, in Samoa, 
an island separated millions of years from land connection with this 
country, we saw a number of species persisting there which we recog¬ 
nized as familiar denizens of our woods around Cincinnati. Some of 
them we know onlv bv American names but our faith in their being - 
“American species” was strongly shocked. Every one who studies 
Agarics in this country will find a number of plants he cannot place. 
It is a very simple matter to call them “new species” and so describe 
them, and no doubt some of them will be “new species”, but the 
majority, we firmly believe, are “old species” that we do not recognize 
from the published description and plates. When we meet such a plant, 
for convenience we call it by a new or temporary name for the time 
being, believing that our work will aid in its correct reference in time. 
We will thank any one for additional light on any of the plants con¬ 
sidered in these notes, and especially on any of the “p. t.” species. 
106-TWO PLANTS WITH PECULIAR SPORES 
The size, the measurement of spores appears to me to be too 
strongly relied upon in the work of some of our present workers. In 
Fries’ days not enough attention was paid to the spores ; in our days 
too much stress is placed upon the size of spores. We do not question 
that the shape of the spores is a constant and helpful character of 
Agarics, as is also their “general .size.” For instance, the unusally 
large spores of Collybia radicata is a character distinguishing this spe¬ 
cies from other Collybias, but we would not put much faith in a Col¬ 
lybia which differs principally in having the spores one or two micro¬ 
meters larger or smaller than some other species. In the next place 
the spores of many species vary much in size in the same plant. Throw 
on a slide the spores of almost any common Coprinus and you will find 
often two or three micrometers difference in the diameters. Whether 
this is due to some spores being immature and others ripe, or whether 
the mature spores vary I do not know. Again no two observers are 
apt to measure alike the same spores. Compare the recorded measure¬ 
ments of different observers of the spores of common plants and note 
the discrepancies. 
The general shape, on the other hand, we think is characteristic 
of the species. The genus Coprinus could be divided into species with 
globose spores and species with spores not globose. We believe this 
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