The North American Cup-fungi
(Operculates) (Seaver 1928) has been a standard reference
for more than 50 years. It was revised by Seaver in 1942 and has
stood as an authoritative source since that time. No modern work
on the Pezizales fails to cite it and, though there are some monographs
for genera and some regional floras, one invariably still turns
to this book when one is identifying Pezizales.
In the years since Seaver's work,
the Pezizales have been reworked at the generic level and important
cytological, histochemical, and developmental work has been done
on the group. Several major monographs of genera have been written
as well as checklists and regional reports. It is not surprising
that, when using Seavert's treatment, one is often able to identify
a species without having any idea of where the species belongs
in modern generic systems. Seaver's treatment was a highly artificial
one. I have set about annotating Seaver's nomenclature.
Modern currently accepted names
for his concepts or names are provided in the list which follows.
These are opinions. Certainly one can turn to Seaver's list of
synonyms and find other opinions. I have tried to follow a conservative
pathway and have listed binomials which for the most part are
now in common usage. In a few cases some rearrangement is proposed
but generic concepts are those which are found in Eckblad's (1968)
revision, Rifai's (1968) treatment of the AustralAsian Pezizales,
Dennis's (1978) recent revision, or Korf's keys (1972, 1973a).
I have not tried to provide all
of the synonyms but rather to fit Seaver's taxa into recognizable
modern genera. This has been easier in some groups than in others
as the listing which follows will amply show. Some genera have
been well worked; others are woefully understudied. Still it is
hoped that those using the book will find this annotation helpful.
The annotation is made up of three
parts. Part I lists the name used by Seaver, the page number in
North American Cupfungi (Operculates) revised edition, and
the equivalent name where known. Comments on some of the names
are made in lumbered notes referred to in the revised list. Those
Seaver names which are underlined were listed as doubtful by Seaver.
The Seaver names marked with a "+" represent names which
for sundry reasons were not possible to verify in North America.
Part II is an index to the revised names as listed in Part I.
The page numbers refer to Seaver's book. With each generic name,
reference to recent monographic work s given. Part III is a bibliography.
Most recent treatments containing references to North American
taxa are listed.
I wish to thank several curators
who have seen to it that I had specimens for study. These are
Clark T. Rogerson (NY), David Farr (BPI), John H. Haines (NYS),
and Richard P. Korf (CUP). My debt to Prof. Korf is a profound
one. He reviewed this manuscript, made suggestions, and gave encouragement.
He provided many of the clues which lead to the solution of some
of the tangles. He also got me started on discomycetes as a graduate
student. This research was supported in part by National Science
Foundation grant DEB 8023018 to the author.