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THE HISTORY OF MYCOLOGY IN ESSEX.
By J. RAMSBOTTOM, O.B.E., M.A., Sec. L.S., Keeper of Botany, British Museum,
(Natural History).
[Read 29th October, 1932; with additions.]
TO many, the Essex Field Club is known chiefly for its very
popular autumn fungus-foray, and it is, therefore, of
particular interest to find out to what extent fungi figure in
the botanical history of the County.
In former days British botanists had wide interests, and
specialists as such were unknown. Naturally, flowering plants
and ferns were chiefly considered, for they are the most obvious,
but from the earliest times we find that some attention was paid
to other groups, and fungi were not wholly neglected.11
It may perhaps surprise some that the larger fungi did not
attract more attention from the older botanists. Certainly,
in the autumn, many of them are far more conspicuous than
flowering plants, and it is unlikely that those who had to make
their botanical explorations chiefly on foot restricted their
journeys to the summer months. The explanation is to be
sought, I think, in two directions. Fungi were regarded as
anomalous plants, peculiar in their shapes, growth and mode
of life. Though the physiological importance of chlorophyll
was not known, the fact that it is absent from these brightly
coloured organisms was noticed and accounted for many strange
ideas about them.12 While there was still so much to be learned
about the more prosaic flowering plant the bizarre fungus was
much neglected. The one fitted into the Creator's scheme of
nature as understood by the old natural philosophers; the other,
possibly, was not specially created according to plan—it might
even be merely an efflorescence of the earth!
The second reason for their neglect was doubtless owing to
the difficulty in their preservation. Flowering plants could be
dried and kept for reference, but those who went on herborizing
excursions or simpling voyages could do nothing with any of
the fleshy fungi they should happen to bring back.
The smaller fungi for the most part were unrecognised
11 Fungi were written about by Theophrastus and other classical authors.
12 "I am of this mind with Homer . . . the snyile that crept out of hir shell was turned
"eftsooes into a Toad, and therby was forced to make a stoole to sit on." Lyly, Eupkues.