This paper forms part of a series in which an annotated nomenclatorial enumeration is given of all generic names porposed for Hymenomycetes. Since the ‘Agaricaceae’ form the major group of that vast division of the fungi and have attracted most of the attention from mycologists since the fungi became a subject of scientific study, it was thought convenient to issue this eleventh part as an independent unit which would be intelligible without reference to the preceding parts. For this reason some technical nomenclatorial terms are explained below.
An attempt has been made to include all generic names effectively published at or after the introduction of the Linnean system of nomenclature. A distinction is made between, (i) names that are pre-Linnean or pre-Friesian, that is, published before the starting-point date of the llymenomycetes (1821) and have never been taken up at or after that date and are not devalidated names; (ii) devalidated names and names published after the starting-point date but not validly published (spaced in italic type); and (iii) validly published names (italic large capitals). Names excluded from the Hymenomycetes are treated between square brackets (spaced in italic type if post-Friesian).
The registration of names in the present paper, even if they are considered. validly published and legitimate or correct, does not denote the author’s intention to assign to them any other status under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature than the one they actually possessed before the paper was written. New names or new combinations are unambiguously indicated.
Definition. The ‘Agaricaceae’ as understood in the present paper are those fungi which Fries called, or would have called, Agaricini, but with the exclusion of Cantharellus sensu stricto which has been treated in connection with the ‘Meruliaceae’ (Part IX). Some names of agaric-like groups have been treated on previous occasions, for instance, if their type species had a smooth hymenium (‘Thelephoraceae’; Part VII), but this has not been consistently done and some of those names have found a place in this instalment (Helotium, Perona), as also have some names of mycenoid and marasmioid genera with tubes instead of gills. The Boletaceae have been treated separately (Part IV).
Generic names that might have been expected to be treated on this occasion but have not found a place here are briefly mentioned with references to the papers where they have been (or will be) more fully treated.