Were the latter native to the old world at all, it had surely been seen long ago. It is large and fine, and could not have escaped the famous collectors of the last two hundred years. Although it has been sent by students from this side of the ocean to Europe for more than thirty years, it has not even adventitiously appeared.
It therefore appears that our American species is known to Europe through Mr. Wingate's reference only.
Twenty years ago in correspondence with Mr. Wingate it was learned that the material received by him from M. Roze was but a small fragment, crushed flat, and even this was at that time no longer in evidence. This specimen was itself not part of the gathering submitted to Rostafinski; but only the fragment of something appearing in 1890 in the same locality!
. . . . "something not the same,
But only like its forecast in men's dreams."
When we further reflect that the spores of species of several of the forms now in review, Tubifera, Reticularia, Enteridium, are not without difficulty distinguished, it is easy to see that Mr. Wingate's specific reference has narrow foundations to say the least. It seems now likely that Father Torrend's Liceopsis, Reticulara lobata R., M. Roze's aftermath, and all, are but the depauperate forms of some tubifera!
E. rozeanum Wing., is therefore the synonym for an ill-defined something in Western Europe and need not further here concern us as far material reference goes.
In any case, what induced Mr. Wingate to pull Rostafinski's uncertain description of a problematic form across the sea, to attach it to our clearly defined and well known American species, changing the Polish description the while to make it fit, is hard to understand; especially in view of the fact, by Wingate admitted, that Rex had in his letters to Morgan already named the American type Enteridium umbrinum. The two students differed as to generic reference, and later on Morgan published Reticularia splendens Morg.; rather than R. umbrina (Rex) Morg. because he was using R. umbrina Fr. for what is generally known as R. lycoperdon (Bull.)
It would then appear that when Wingate sought to impose the Rostafinskian specific name upon our American form by changing (fixing!) Rostafinski's generic reference, and by re-writing the specific description from the pages of the Monograph in order to claim identity, he was entirely without justification, especially since he knew the species appropriately named by his colleague, Dr. Rex, and had the name as used in the Rex and Morgan correspondence.
In brief; Mr. Wingate proceeded to re-describe Rostafinski's rozean specimen and referred a long-known American form (very different) to the European specimen as type. Wingate's description is right; he had the American material before him; but his cited type is worthless, an entirely different thing.
Does the reader care to see what the European type of our common form, Wingate teste, really looks like, let him consult the Jour. of Botany, Vol. XXIX., p. 263, 1891.