PREFACE 
Vll 
fore, no more difficult to identify a fungus than it is to 
diagnose a flower. 
The majority of the Ascomycetes being minute species 
that can only be determined precisely with the aid of a 
microscope, I have not considered it necessary to outline 
the families and genera of this Order, and have noted only 
large, and for the most part common species which can be 
easily identified by macroscopic characters. 
I have much pleasure in here acknowledging my great 
indebtedness to my friend Miss M. K. Spittal for her very 
excellent coloured and black-and-white plates. 
My thanks are also due to Mrs. Carleton Rea for the 
coloured drawings reproduced on Plate XL 111 .; to the 
British Mycological Society for the loan of a block ; to Sir 
Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S., for kind permission to illus¬ 
trate specimens at his Educational Museum, Haslemere ; 
and to Mr. C. G. Lloyd of Cincinnati, U.S.A., who has 
most generously permitted the reproduction of many illustra¬ 
tions from his privately printed monographs and papers 
concerning the Gasteromycetes. 
E. W. SWANTON 
Haslemere 
September , 1909 
