PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
THE first edition of this Work having for some time been out of print, and the demands of the public encouraging the publisher to proceed with a new edition, I have added, in a second Appendix, descriptions of all the species discovered in Britain since 1865, so far as they relate to the Orders included in this volume. The success which has attended the sale of this Work, and the number of fresh observers it has brought into the field, has greatly tended to the necessity for a second Appendix. A larger number of observers, over a still more extended area, will, it is hoped, add further to our list; by increasing the number of known species. Hitherto one great cause of the paucity of students of Fungi in this country, especially of the Microscopic forms, has been the want of text-books on the subject, containing descriptions of the species, with figures illustrative of the genera. Although this little volume only partly supplies that want, by including the species found on living plants alone, it has already proved of service; this and its companion volume, “Introduction to British Fungi,” being (with but one exception) the only books on Fungi which have passed into a second edition in this country; a fact which appears to prove that they have succeeded in furnishing a desideratum, and in giving an impetus to the study. It is hoped that similar results will follow the publication of this new edition.