green woods occur there as well as frondose It might be argued that 
as Fries mistook Hudson’s plant, the name Geaster fornicatus should 
belong to Fries’ plant, and from the further fact that the little pine- 
woods species is very common on the continent and is the plant usually 
distributed under this name in the exsiccatae of which the Germans 
are so prolific. No less than sixteen different collections of the little 
pine-woods species is in the British Museum labeled ‘ • fornicatus ” and 
it is one of our contentions that established “use” makes language. 
If the makers of exsiccatae were content to label their plant simply 
“ Geaster fornicatus ” we might take this view of it but when they label 
it “ Geaster fornicatus (Hudson) Fries ” we protest, for no such plant 
ever existed. 
A further bit of evidence in regard to the original meaning of 
the name * ‘ fornicatum” is found in the Lfinnaean herbarium where 
there is a specimen of the large black plant labeled “ Lvcoperdon forni¬ 
catum.” Surely this is very “prior” evidence. The plant is not in 
the Linnaeau handwriting and Linnaeus never published it. I think 
there is a possibility that it was sent him by Hudson. 
274 -N’ABUSEZ PAS DU MICROSCOPE. 
“Soit dit en passant, l’histoire naturelle moderne tend a abuser 
des verres grossissants: cette methode, sans doute, nee en Allemagne, 
ne peut amener d’autre resultat, en admettant d’ailleurs qu’elle soit 
impeccable, que d’ eloigner de la science line foule de personnes, bien 
capables d’appreeier la forme d’une corolle on d’une feuille, mais 
reculant devant les finesses de mysteres qu’un grossissement de 500 
diametres laisse a peine entrevoir. 
Remarquez que ce 11 ’est pas la une opinion purement person- 
,elle. “N’abusons pas du microscope si nous tenons a ce que les 
avenues du moins de la science ne soient pas fermees a la generality 
des naturalistes. Un petit nombre d’elus penetrera dans le sanctu- 
aire’ ’ —Jaubert. 
D’une maniere generate, 1’introduction exageree des methodes 
scientifiques dans les etudes est nuisible; sait-on mieux le latin parce 
que a la regie liber P.tri on a substitue des subtilites grammaticales.” 
—A. Acloque in Cosmos. 
The above is exactly in line with what we have written on the 
subject. (Cfr. The Genera of Gastromycetes, note on p. 5, also Myc. 
Notes, note on p. 147). We do not undervalue the microscopic features 
of fungi. We do not maintain for a minute that divisions of the Ly- 
coperdon by Fries in his early days on the shape of the plant are superior 
to those of Massee on the nature and markings of the spores, especially 
as we find in the same collection and species of Lvcoperdon all kinds of 
shapes. But we do not believe in separating plants that are obviously 
related in their mature states, on some microscopic feature that can 
only be known from young specimens. We think there is no room 
between Astraeus and Geaster for the Nidulariaceae, if indeed we 
thought it were even wise to make two genera of them. 
177 
