Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1884 [PAGE 94]

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98 the species, and reduce the others to synonyms. In the case of the Urediuece there are in numerous species spore-forms now known as "teieutospores," "uredospores," "seeidiospores," and "spermatia," from which one must be selected as the mature or final "fruit," and its name taken for the species as a whole. But, as no process of fertilization has been discovered for any of these spore productions, there is a difference of opinion among investigators as to which ought to be considered this mature or final form. Sachs, whose judgment must be highly respected, adopts the aecidium stage as that most probably the result of some kind of fertilization; while others, equally competent, believe the teieutospores—as the name indicates—are the final, and if any, the fertilized bodies. Sachs, therefore, inclines to call the common rust of wheat Mcidium graminis, instead of Puccinia graminis, the name used by all authorities up to this time. Winter, in his recent revision of Eabenhorst's Pilze (Fungi), attempts to apply rigorously the law of priority of names to whatever form of the species the first name was given, and most naturalists making a specialty of any other department of nature would doubtless commend bis endeavor. But there are very serious difficulties in the way. While we may accept as proved that certain iEcidia are genetic forms of known Pucciniae, in the great number of cases such relation is simply supposed to exist. «Shall we revise our nomenclature on the basis of a supposition? In the writings of early mycologists the descriptive characteristics following a name are often equally applicable to several species as we now know them. In the absence of herbarium types, shall we guess at the plant in hand when the description was drawn up? Not unfrequently the oldest name is given to what was deemed a variety, and later another name by another or the same author is adopted for the same plant as a species. Shall we now write the earliest varietal name as specific, and quote the first botanist as authority? The question is not whether the second writer should have adopted the first name; it is now a question of choice between two names already in literature. The authority, after a binomial appellation, is clearly that of the one who associates the generic and specific parts of the name and applies it thus constituted to the designated plant. For phaenogams there seems to be little need of preserving with the name any further item than this of bibliography. The change of genera is not so frequent as to cause serious confusion, and the descriptions are ordinarily full and unmistakable. Mycologists, however, find it important to quote the name of the original authority for the specific name, agreeing in this with the custom among zoological writers, especially with those who devote themselves to the lower and less known orders of animals. A very considerable number of the names of fungi must thus be accompanied with two authorities, that for the oiiginal specific name occurring first in parenthesis, and that for the binomial whole, afterward. It is true this decidedly increases the difficulty of writing and of memorizing, but the benefits more than counterbalance the drawbacks. Certainly it will not answer to quote alone that which is put in parenthesis, though the change of genus is in this manner indicated. The parenthetical reference is dropped by students of phsenogams, and