In this supplement the authorI brings together the work that has been published on these fungi in the last twenty years. He amends also some inevitable omissions. It was never hir intention to pose as a taxonomic expert. He sought in the years 1940—1946 to relate the clavarioid fungi of the world into generathat would be useful to botany. At that time a tropical botanist could not become a taxonomic expert because types could not be loaned and money was not available for travel to study them. Indeed, such investigations into types as the author had opportunity to make at Kew and Paris were in hir spare time. But times have improved. The code of nomenclature has been tightened. Collections have been sent to me. Many, yet still not all, types may be borrowed. He has himself travelled extensively in the tropics and gathered clavarias whenever he met with them. Thus the taxonomy has been forced upon me. Nevertheless he has generally refrained from studying types in floras with which he has little personal experience. Mycologists who know their fungi in the field, who know the living and can perceive their relation with dead and dried, should do this. Many fungi, easily distinguishable alive, become almost alike in the herbarium where decimals of a micron seem more important than form, colour, habit and habitat. the author has in mind particularly the genus Clavulinopsis where the temptation is to reduce species that dry alike. He prefers the record of the living. This was how mycology grew, prospered and was transmitted from generation to generation in Europe. Clavaria vermicularis, Clavulinopsis fusiformis or Ramaria botrytis are not herbarium concepts but living things for acquaintance with which experience is necessary. The subject will become satisfactory when fifty mycologists are agreed about Pterula multifida and can distinguish it from P. aleana.
To publish a revised edition of the monograph has not been possible. It would not be useful. There are still many species without accurate description. This supplement must be used, therefore, in conjunction with the monograph. The author has revised keys to identification where new knowledge has made this possible, but he has left out the uncertainties which are in the monograph.