Conserving Names of Fungi

Abstract

Having just had an opportunity to peruse Dr. Donk's article (4) on the conservation of generic names, I am moved to make a few remarks on what may be considered an already threadbare subject. However, as long as a few curious people, even in time of war, persist in pursuing and naming the lowly fungi and cannot seem to agree on any simple and rational method of choosing their names, perhaps further discussion may be justified. In recent years considerable progress has been made by international botanists toward the stabilization of generic and specific names. The type method of fixing such names has been generally adopted and also the conservation of our common and well known generic names. The conservation of specific names seems equally desirable. It is being urged by some of our English colleagues and we hope it may be provided for in the next revision of the code. It has taken much time and effort to get these principles accepted. Our chief problem now is to find some more practical plan for selecting and typifying generic names. Many of us have apparently become so attached to the priority plan that it is difficult to give it up even in special cases. Before it was agreed to make exceptions to the almost sacred law of priority we could not agree on a starting point, and so long as we make priority the major principle in the choice of names, and in addition fix various dates for the starting points of various groups of fungi, we cannot hope to reach any great degree of uniformity or stability in the choice and application of names, even after a great amount of bibliographic and herbarium work under the most favorable library and herbarium facilities, has been carried out. That priority with its multiple starting points is the cause of much confusion and waste of time and effort in reaching any satisfactory conclusion by the present plan is most forcibly and convincingly illustrated by Dr. Donk's discussion of Corticium (4, p. 164-7) as well as other generic names. Persoon (9), who first used the 267