28 
NOMAD FUNGI. 
are, in the light of the past, so remarkable that I cannot do better 
than quote them in full. “So far as I know,” he says, “no one’in 
this country has taken the trouble to put the matter to the test of 
experiment. For my part, it may he said that, having conducted 
upwards of a hundred cultures during the past two years, I have 
no doubt whatever upon the subject. We ai-e putting ourselves in a 
hypercritical position if we refuse to believe what competent observers 
assert, simply because we have not ourselves actually seen it.”* And let 
me add that the state of the case is not improved when the “competent 
observers ” are of a foreign race, and the unbelieving spectators 
belong to this favoured nation. We are often reproached for our 
insularity, and it is certain that w’e have often fallen behind the 
science of the age by incredulous contempt for foreign observers. I 
rejoice, therefore, to see Mr. Plowright strike the first blow at that 
body of errors which has hitherto passed for knowledge about leaf fungi 
in Britain—that house of cards which now, at the touch of Ithuriel’s 
spear, falls “like the baseless fabric of a vision.” 
The Be vised Classification. 
You will best appreciate the extent of the change if I place before 
you Dr. Winter’s revised classification, so far as it relates to British 
species, and compare it with the one now obsolete : — 
Ustilago 
Sorosporium 
Uromyces 
I. (Ecidium 
jj j Uredo or 
■ (Trichobasis 
III. Uromyces 
Puccinia 
I. OEcidium 
Tj f Uredo or 
I Trichobasis 
III Puccinia 
USTILAGINEiF. 
Tilletia 
Entylomaf 
UBEDINE^. 
Triphragmium 
in I 
Phragmidium 
I. I Lecythea or 
II I Uredo 
III Phragmidium 
Gymnosporangium 
I Roestelia 
III Podisoma 
Urocystis 
Cronartium 
f II. 
1 III. 
Melampsora 
II Lecythea 
III Melampsora 
Coleosporium 
I Peridermium 
in I ^oisosporium 
Endophyllum 
The triple division, into Pucciniacei, Caeomacei, and CEcidiacei, has 
ceased to exist, because these three orders typify only three «'tages in 
the life-history of one and the same fungus. The Ustilaginefe. com¬ 
prise such of the Cseomacei as are found to differ remarkably from the 
others in the mode of germination of the spores; with these we have 
nothing further to do. The genera which enter into the other group, 
the Uredineae, are nearly all characterised by what is known as 
Pleornorphiam that is, they pass in their annual cycle through several 
distinct phases, which are so different that, prior to experiment and 
extended observation, they were placed—and rightly too—in distinct 
genera or orders. An exactly similar case is well known to zoologists 
* “ Science Gossip,” September, 1882, p. 196. 
this genus discovered in Britain are recorded in the pages of 
Grevillea under the name ot Pi’otomyces. ^ ^ 
