many fungi have yet to be collected and named , and it appears that the number of undescribed species is at least 1.4 million and probably as many as 3 million ( hawksworth 2012a ) . it is anticipated that many of these species are to be found in the tropics , and this poses particular constraints to their formal description . until the 1990s , tackling this task was generally by opportunist , short - stay visits to the tropics by european and north american mycologists ; something that can be likened to  smash - and - grab  raids . the material is often retained in the collector s institution though , where possible , some mycologists have split , and diligently repatriated , at least some of the specimens . as there were few centres anywhere in the tropics where fungal material could be deposited and safeguarded for examination by future generations of mycologists in the 18 and 19 centuries , this situation was unavoidable in those times . in the last few decades in particular , the situation has changed
. there has been a remarkable expansion in systematic mycology in universities , research institutions , and museums located in some tropical regions , especially in parts of asia , south america , and southern africa .
in endeavouring to check if a previously named fungus is the same as one recently collected , or when undertaking revisionary work or preparing monographs , it is often necessary to consult material at institutions in europe and/or north america .
this is particularly so in the case of the name - bearing type material where original descriptions , especially from the 19 century , are meagre and lack information on characters essential for interpretation today ; and they may not be accompanied by photomicrographs or line drawings .
personal visits to the holding institutions are ideal , but may be prohibitively expensive for those lacking secure funding . at the same time , collection curators are increasingly reluctant to dispatch material around the world .
this is understandable as there are instances where irreplaceable types have been lost or damaged in the postal systems , or even destroyed at points of entry by customs officials .
also , the problems of loss or damage in transit are not confined to tropical countries ; for example , i know of cases where type material , dispatched to the uk from institutions in poland and russia , failed to arrive at all . in the case of microfungi in particular , there is often an additional problem of few or even single sporocarps being present on a specimen .
there are concerns at their being destroyed in examination , with no permanent preparations having been made , or being used in abortive attempts to extract dna .
some institutions have developed a policy of sending only a portion of the material at one time , with the remainder sent only when the first part has been returned .
further , to minimise destructive sampling , whenever slides had been prepared , these were often also included and loaned with the type material to preclude the necessity for more preparations .
the splitting of samples and slides was a practice adopted at the former international mycological institute ( kew and egham , uk ) in the 1980s and 1990s .
that institute was anxious to promote the study of tropical fungi in universities and other institutions in tropical regions .
many european and north american institutions , however , have policies of only lending material to other established institutions , and not to individuals or institutions lacking collections or curators .
others , especially ones with collections dating from the early 19 century and before , will no longer lend material under any circumstances , generally as a result of unfortunate experiences in the past .
however , in some cases , where the lending of type material is not allowed , curators of collections have been pleased to supply photographs , and prepare microscopic preparations instead which may be sufficient in some cases . an increasing number
are actively preparing digital images of the specimens they hold , and making the images available through the worldwide web .
however , although digital macroscopic images can be excellent for studying vascular plants , they are of limited value for studying most fungi .
there is also a category of institutions that are willing , in principle , to lend material , but have neither the appropriately experienced staff to look out , pack , and dispatch material , nor the funds to cover the costs of secure postal services .
the loan issue is particularly acute and frustrating where it is known that the desired name - bearing type material is in existence in a collection , but which can not be examined for any of the reasons summarized above .
this is a conundrum that has the potential to shackle , frustrate , and delay progress in systematic studies in regions with the highest proportions of yet undescribed fungi  and where many of those able to undertake that work are now located .
this is not a new situation , indeed the mycologist and botanical polymath corner ( 1946 ) observed that  there is no reason why research should be held up because the [ mycologist ] is unable to consult earlier investigations  .
young [ mycologists ] brazenly to face the situation and to ignore , of necessity , what they can not possibly obtain , through distant libraries  .
he went on to remark that following the destruction of so many libraries and collections in world war ii ,  few will be able to consult the early periodicals , the early books , and the type specimens  .
his suggestion was to produce encyclopaedic works and , in effect , treat those as new starting points for future work .
i suspect he would have been a strong supporter of the changes enacted in july 2011 to establish protected lists of names of fungi ( hawksworth 2012b , mcneill et al .
. he would also be pleased to see that increasing amounts of early mycological literature are becoming available free of charge through the biodiversity heritage library ( bhl ; http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ ) and cyberliber ( http://www.cybertruffle.org.uk/cyberliber/ ) initiatives .
the issue of access to name - bearing types unfortunately remains a constraint almost seven decades on .
a pragmatic approach has to be adopted to alleviate this particular constraint on systematic mycology , especially in the tropics .
each case must be considered individually , and no generalization can be made , but some guidelines may prove helpful to mycologists when confronted with the frustrating situation of not being able to examine name - bearing type material which is known still to exist in some collection .
request either a member of staff in the collection ( or the institution in which it is housed ) , or another mycologist living near the holding institution , or a visiting mycologist , to take high - power digital images , make measurements or notes , or prepare microscopic slides that can be sent on loan . see if any duplicate material ( isotypes ) of the desired name - bearing type is available in collections of other institutions known to house material of the author or the collector , as these might be willing lend material .
information on where material of deceased authors of fungal names is held is included in hawksworth ( 1974 ) and taxonomic literature ( tl-2 ; stafleu & cowan 19762009 ) . in some cases
, there will be evidence in the published literature that later mycologists have examined a specimen , and these may have provided a detailed description and/or illustrations . in such instances the type collection may be cited but with  n.v . 
( non vide ; i.e. not seen ) , added after the collection acronym to show it was not examined .
this is a common practice where a taxon is well established , and the circumscription is not controversial .
request photocopies of the labels to verify the status of the located specimens to confirm that they qualify as holotypes , or be potential material for lectotypification .
the label should give locality and date of collection , or other indications on the packets , such as  orig . mat .
 ,  sp . nov .  , or  typus  , in the author s handwriting . if there is no such evidence , it is possible that material which had been previously considered to be the name - bearing type , proves not to be when the provenance is studied more critically .
for example , a specimen with no date , even though made by the describing author and from the original locality , may have been collected after the date of effective publication of the name .
this would mean that there was no obstacle to designating some other collection that was available for study as a neotype .
a neotype does not have to be of material ever seen by the original author but , ideally , should be from the same geographical area of collection and , where appropriate , from the same host or substrate . in cases , where it is really necessary to clarify an ambiguous situation and fix unequivocally the application of a name , and where a holotype / lectotype / neotype exists , but can not be studied , an interpretative type , termed an  epitype  could perhaps be justified .
this would be a broad interpretation of the phrase  can not be critically identified for purposes of the precise application of the name of a taxon 
that epitype would stand unless , and until , it was  shown that an epitype and the type it supports differ taxonomically  ( art .
9.20 ) . when designating an epitype , the extant name - bearing type which it acts as an interpretative type for has to be stated .
this is , however , a somewhat controversial interpretation of the code , where the material might be identifiable were it studied .
consequently , such a step should not be undertaken without the most careful consideration , and this issue will be explored further in a separate paper currently being prepared by kevin d. hyde and colleagues . however , this may be the most appropriate solution , and justifiable , where cryptic species ( ones that are morphologically indistinguishable ) are involved , and where dna sequence data are not available for the extant ( but unexamined ) name - bearing type , but are for the proposed epitype . 
 as an epitype is an interpretive type linked to the name - bearing type
, if there are syntypes that are not accessible it would be necessary first to select one of those as a lectotype and to base the epitype on that . 
 the article ( art . )
numbers of the code used in this contribution are those of the melbourne code ( mcneill et al .
2012 ) , some of which differ from those allocated to the same points in previous editions . 
  as an epitype is an interpretive type linked to the name - bearing type , if there are syntypes that are not accessible it would be necessary first to select one of those as a lectotype and to base the epitype on that .
the article ( art . ) numbers of the code used in this contribution are those of the melbourne code ( mcneill et al . 2012 ) , some of which differ from those allocated to the same points in previous editions . for names that are not in current use , the name can simply be listed as of uncertain application , and
not be adopted  but this procedure should not be followed for names in use today as that could lead to new undesirable names shaving to be adopted . now that mechanisms for the protection of fungal names through the adoption of lists of accepted names ( i.e. protected names ) and rejected names ( i.e. suppressed names )
have been incorporated into the code ( arts 14.13 , 56.3 ) , the importance of fixing the application of all proposed names is reduced . while it is desirable that all names are typified and discussed in systematic work , older names subsequently discovered to pre - date ones in use may be listed either as synonyms in an accepted list , or alternatively added to a rejected list .
for names in current use , where it is not clear whether any name - bearing type material definitely exists , for example because of uncertainty of the provenance of a specimen previously considered as the type , or not being able to check the describing author s collections , designate a particular , freshly studied specimen and use a phrase such as  representative specimen  or 
pragmatype  and  protype  , as used in zoology , are both better avoided as their meaning is closer to that of epitype ( hawksworth 2010 ) . a proxy type , although an unofficial designation , would remain available for selection in the future as a neotype if it later became clear that no holotype or original material eligible for lectotypification was extant .
where there is no holotype , a lectotype has not previously been designated , and the name was introduced prior to 1 january 2007 , in some cases an illustration may be available for use ( art .
this situation arises where the original material consists of both one or more candidate specimens that can not be studied and also an illustration , there is no obstacle under the code to selecting the illustration as lectotype , and not the specimen .
the illustrations can be unpublished , or published either before or with the validating diagnosis ( art .
it would then be possible to designate another specimen or metabolically inactive culture as epitype .
13.1(d ) ) , no holotype of the name - bringing epithet exists , and a lectotype has not previously been designated from amongst existing original material ( which can not be studied ) , a lectotype which is available for examination may be selected from among elements associated with either the original protologue or the sanctioning treatment ( art .
this is only likely to be a potential solution in a small number of cases as all specimens cited in sanctioning works may also be unavailable for examination .
however , if one or more illustrations are cited in the sanctioning work they may be available for designation as lectotypes in which case the procedure noted in ( 8) above could be considered .
bearing in mind the current problems over access to name - bearing types addressed here , mycologists can take some action to preclude , or at least minimise any future difficulties when designating a holotype , or any other official category of type .
deposit the name - bearing type (  holotype  ) in a public collection in the country of origin where there is a fungal curator .
many types of fungi are deposited in collections located in countries other than that in which they were collected ; this was the case for 41 % of the name - bearing types of fungi described in the period 199194 ( hawksworth & kirk 1995 ) .
this situation should not be exacerbated where alternative public collections exist in the countries of origin .
deposit duplicates (  isotypes  ) of the name - bearing type in one or more different public collections located in other countries where the specimens are sufficiently large to enable them to be subdivided . where material can not be split , where possible deposit duplicates of other collections cited in the original publication (  paratypes  ) instead .
where a name - bearing type (  holotype  ) is a permanently preserved and metabolically inactive culture , it is prudent to deposit subcultures prepared from that (  ex - type  cultures ) in at least three service collections of fungal cultures from which they can be obtained .
provide as detailed and comprehensive description as possible of the fungus and accompany it with photomicrographs and line drawings , and note the advice in seifert & rossman ( 2010 ) .
along with the designated type material , deposit permanent microscopic slide preparations which show essential features . where dna sequence data have been obtained , deposit them in genbank , or a similar public repository .
when designating a lectotype , neotype , or epitype of a name , remember that this , as other nomenclatural acts , has to be published ; an annotation on a label attached to a specimen does not constitute effective typification .
mention any designations of a lectotype , neotype , or epitype in the abstract of the paper in which these are published .
such later typifications are otherwise easily overlooked by other mycologists . also , record such published typifications in a nomenclatural database if possible .
i understand that this facility will be available in mycobank shortly , and in the future i personally would wish to see this become mandatory for the recognition of later typifications under the code . in view of the scant and fragile nature of many older type specimens
examination of types is essential in the course of revisionary or monographic studies , or to confirm differences from a newly discovered taxon , but inappropriate in the case of routine identifications  except where ex - type cultures are available .
mycologists today sometimes need to consult specimens collected in the 18 and even the 17 centuries ; unnecessary handling and slide - making may jeopardize the value of the specimens to future generations .
any microscopic preparations from specimens should only be made when essential , and the slides made from the material should be permanently preserved along with the type material from which they were derived .
destructive sampling of dried specimens for dna extraction should only be undertaken with the prior permission of the curator concerned .
this is not , however , a problem where ex - type cultures are available .
any type material received on loan should always be packed carefully and returned using secure delivery services  and within the specified period of the loan .
the recommendations in this contribution are based on my personal opinions and experience , good taxonomic practice , and questions which i have been asked by other mycologists , particularly ones based in the tropics .
the recommendations do not necessarily reflect the views of the nomenclature committee for fungi ( ncf ) , the international commission on the taxonomy of fungi ( ictf ) , or the international mycological association ( i m a ) .
further , the options presented are not claimed to be exhaustive and other possibilities may be appropriate in some instances . in each case
as the code is now such a complex and even forbidding document , a valuable guide to it and its operation has recently been prepared by turland ( 2013 ) ; that work merits a place on the shelves of all systematic mycologists .
 access to name - bearing type material can be a particular frustration for those mycologists in the tropics , or working outside established institutions , where the specimens are known to exist but can not be examined . 
 they can be inaccessible because of loans policies and the inability of mycologists to make personal visits . 
 each case has to be considered separately , but a pragmatic nine - point approach is presented which may provide some guidance as to what can be done in such instances . 
 a postscript draws attention to 12 points to consider when designated or handling name - bearing types . 
BACKGROUND
THE PROBLEM
A PRAGMATIC APPROACH
POSTSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER