PREFACE 
''PHE fungi comprise a group of plants second to none 
X in their capacity for evil. Gigantic sums, amounting 
to millions annually, are spent in combating the ravages of 
fungoid pests, but we are only just beginning to realise that 
the rising generation should acquire at least an elementary 
knowledge of this most important branch of botany. At 
the British Association Meeting in 1907, Mr. Carleton Rea 
emphasised the serious claims of mycology for greater atten¬ 
tion than it had up to that time received, and he expressed the 
hope that local natural history societies and field clubs would 
undertake the investigation of the fungi occurring in their 
districts, and provide periodical exhibitions of them. Since 
then the study of fungi has received considerable impetus, 
and many inquiries have been made for an elementary book 
on the subject. 
There are books innumerable on common wild flowers 
(this branch of botany seems to have been given an undue 
importance by teachers of what is nowadays called “ nature- 
study ”), but there are very few indeed which deal with 
common fungi. I hope that this little book, which is 
intended to serve as an introduction to the Fungus Floras 
and Textbooks of Cooke, Stevenson, Massee and other 
authorities, will supply what I have often been assured is a 
desideratum. 
As with the wild flowers so it is with fungi, many range 
