414 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXX, No. 5 
to it by him, it would seem that the 
name should be abandoned or a type 
for it sought elsewhere. 
Weinmann (87) referred two more 
species to the genus Pilacre, P. subter - 
ranea and P. friesii. These species are 
now both regarded by some authors as 
being synonomous with the Discomy- 
cete Roeslerea hypogea Thiim. et Pass 
(see Beckwith, 2 ). In 1834 Weinmann 
(38) transferred his Pilacre friesii of 
1832 to the genus Onygena and de¬ 
scribed another species, which he called 
Pilacre friesii and which, according to 
the original description, might be re¬ 
garded as a synonym of Pilacre faginea. 
All these species of Weinmann are 
somewhat doubtful, as no type or au¬ 
thentic specimens have been seen or 
identified by recent authors. 
It is very clear from the description of 
this genus and the species referred to, 
that the authors had very little definite 
knowledge of the structure and rela¬ 
tionships of the specimens with which 
they were dealing. It will be noted 
from the account given above of Fries's 
treatment of his genus Pilacre that he 
never referred to it his Onygena faginea. 
This was first referred to the genus by 
Berkeley and Broome in 1850 (3, p. 
365) . It is clear from Fries’s treatment 
of 0 . faginea that he was more or less 
doubtful from the beginning as to its 
relationship, and finally in 1857 (19, p. 
151) decided to call it Ecchyna faginea. 
The history of the genus Ecchyna 
also show how unsatisfactory his ideas 
of the application and limits of some of 
the names he proposed were, especially 
when they related to the smaller fungi, 
a real knowledge of which required a 
more or less careful microscopic study. 
Fries proposed this name Ecchyna in 
1819 ( 14 ) P . 80), giving the name only 
and adding “1. c.” What the “1. c.” 
refers to the writers have been unable 
to determine. The first work cited 
above on the page contains no mention 
of this name so far as they can discover, 
nor have they been able to find mention 
of it in any of the earlier works referred 
to by him in the publication cited. 
The next mention of this name by 
Fries, in 1825 (15, p. 151), is in an ob¬ 
servation under the description of 
Onygena of Persoon, in which he says 
he finds a notable fungus with hornlike 
branches but without heads, which he 
has called Ecchyna, but it may be a 
monstrous form of 0. faginea. His next 
mention of this generic name is in 1849 
(17, p. 44®) in a footnote in Latin under 
0. faginea, which we translate as fol¬ 
lows: “ There exists intermediate be¬ 
tween this and Onygena faginea and the 
next [Lasioderma] a fungus provision¬ 
ally named Ecchyna.” A brief discus¬ 
sion follows in which he says “it is 
without asci.” 
His next reference to this genus is 
in 1851 (18, p . 135) in which he says 
in Latin: 
I have proposed Ecchyna for Onygena faginea 
only as a subgenus of Onygena. It is very different 
from Pilacre to which my friend Berkeley refers it. 
It might be justifiable to propose Onygena faginea 
as an entirely distinct genus, but however others 
may feel it is impossible for me, trusting to the 
harmony of nature to attribute great weight to 
microscopical characters which are easily inter¬ 
preted by morphological and physiological laws. 
This incidentally throws interesting 
light upon Fries’s mode of reasoning 
and interpreting nature. Fries’s next 
mention of this species is in 1857 
(19, p. 151) where he simply gives the 
name in a list of the species of Gastero- 
mycetes occurring in central Sweden. 
Whether he was still in doubt as to the 
full generic rank of the name is not 
indicated. It is, therefore, difficult 
to say when, if ever, the name was 
really proposed as a genus by Fries. 
Notwithstanding this, Patouillard, 1900 
(28, p. 37) , takes up Ecchyna as a valid 
generic name citing Fries’s footnote of 
1849 as the place of publication. 
If the generic name of this fungus is 
to be selected on the basis of priority 
of publication, there are at least two 
much older names than Ecchyna, 
the application of which is undoubted. 
The first of these is Phleogena Link, 
1833 (24) V • 396). Link described the 
genus and then the monotype, Phleogena 
faginea and cites Onygena faginea 
Fries, as a synonym. This name 
appears to have been entirely neglected 
and is the oldest valid name known at 
present according to the priority rule. 
In 1854 (9, p. 47) Corda, recognizing 
that Onygena faginea Fries, was very 
different from the true Onygena of 
Persoon, gave the species another 
generic name, Botryochaete. Corda 
apparently overlooked or disregarded 
the fact that Link had already pro¬ 
posed a generic name for the same 
species. Neither of these names ever 
came into general use. 
Berkeley and Broome in 1850 (3, p. 
365) first referred Onygena faginea of 
Fries to the genus Pilacre, and this 
combination has been generally used 
ever since. The same fungus was 
described by Berkeley and Curtis in 
1859(5, v.8,p . 362) from American speci¬ 
mens collected by Peters in Alabama 
and named Pilacre petersii. Saccardo 
in his Sylloge (32, p. 362) has referred 
ten species to Pilacre. Of these P. 
friesii Weinmann and P. petersii, 
B. & C. are apparently both synonyms 
of P. faginea, the latter certainly so. 
The other species mentioned are un¬ 
known to the writers; they can not 
