166
ESSEX FIELD CLUB'S "FUNGUS FORAY," 1899.
By GEORGE MASSEE, F.L.S., Principal Assistant, Royal Herbarium. Kew ; President
of the British Mycological Society.
IN the majority of instances, Mycological students commence
by first paying attention to the toadstools or Agarics, or
other large examples of fungal life ; and the comparative absence
of young aspirants to a knowledge of the subject may in part be
explained by the fact that the class of fungi indicated above
have, for some as yet unexplained reason, been, for the last few
years, comparatively speaking, absent from their accustomed
haunts.
Doubtless, the idea will occur to many (if the subject is con-
sidered worthy of bestowing a thought upon) that comparative
drought is the cause of the absence of fungi, and this is, un-
doubtedly, one factor that determines the relative abundance of
fungi, but it is not the only one.
During those favourable seasons, when fungi are most
abundant in numbers, it is a fact well known to every field
mycologist that, even the same district, white-spored Agarics
sometimes predominate to a very large extent, whereas, another
season, rusty-spored species are well to the front, and white-
spored species are rare. Again, during some seasons, the
species of Boletus are numerous, whereas on other occasions,
representatives of the genus are rare, or entirely absent,
although to an ordinary observer climatic conditions were
equally favourable during the two seasons. In 1894, Coprinus
comatus occurred in immense numbers throughout the late
summer and autumn, on a piece of waste ground by the river
between Kew and Mortlake ; this autumn the crop is again
equal to that of 1894, but during the intervening four years, not
a dozen specimens were observed. It can scarcely be suggested
that a crop is produced by the mycelium of this fungus only once
in five years, and is further negatived by the fact that on certain
occasions we have an abundance of individuals produced for
several years in succession. At present it may be stated, with-
out qualification, that we are absolutely ignorant as to the com-
bination of conditions necessary to determine the growth in
profusion of different species of fungi. Something might be
done by those residing in the neighbourhood of Epping Forest,
and as the observations, to be of any real value, would have to
extend over several—even many —years, the commencement
should not be delayed.