REPORTS OF MEETINGS
59
possibly a little tired, but doubtless thoroughly impressed by all they had seen
and heard.
Fungus Foray in Epping Forest (940th Meeting)
SUNDAY, 14 OCTOBER 1951
On this occasion two meeting places were arranged. One party started from
Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, Chingford, and the other from Theydon
Bois Station. The former party walked by way of Warren Wood, Loughton,
and the latter by Jack's Hill and "Wake Arms" to High Beach, where all met
for tea.
A little rain fell early in the day, but by 11 a.m., which was the time ap-
pointed for the start, it had cleared and the remainder of the day was overcast
but dry and warm. The conditions were very pleasant for a day in the Forest
just beginning to show the first of the autumn tints. Fungi were rather scarce,
for a wet summer had caused many to mature several weeks earlier. The week
preceding the Foray was fine and dry and during the day small numbers of
many species were encountered.
Soon after 3.30 p.m. members began to arrive at the tea rendezvous. This
year the King's Oak Hotel had been chosen and here a spacious and well-
lighted room had been furnished with tables for tea and for the display of the
specimens. Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Boardman introduced a new method for the
arrangement of the fungi on the tables. Several cardboard plates were pro-
vided for each genus and well printed labels were to hand for the species which
it was expected to find. Professor Ingold, Mrs. Boardman and Miss Roberts
were soon busily engaged in naming specimens and these were then placed on
the appropriate plates by helpers. By this means an extensive collection was
soon on exhibition, the easily-read labels made it possible for students to learn
the names of a good number of species. Later arrivals could often match their
specimens with those already named, thus saving the experts unnecessary
duplication of their work.
At 4.15 p.m. some fifty-six members and friends sat down to tea and as soon
as the meal was over Mr. Bernard Ward was elected chairman and the usual
short formal meeting was held. A number of names of candidates for election
to membership were read for the first time. The Chairman then welcomed
Professor Ingold, who had so kindly attended once again to assist in the
identification of specimens. It was with great regret that members heard that
Dr. Gregory was prevented from attending by indisposition. Professor Ingold
then spoke of the history of fungus forays. He said that this form of field meet-
ing had been instituted by the Woolhope Club in Herefordshire in 1870 when
some of their members had gone to great lengths to make their collecting
effective; some even carried ladders for gathering arboreal fungi and some took
rakes for collecting truffles, etc.
He then gave a concise survey of the day's collecting. Numbers of fungi
were small this year, but a great many species had turned up; it would, there-
fore, not be possible in the circumstances to name everything which had
appeared. Members attending a foray for the first time would probably see
quite enough named species for one day's study, but old hands might consider
the show rather a poor one.
Mr. Ross then gave an account of the Mycetozoa which had been collected.
Results had been excellent. The number of species collected had only been
exceeded many years earlier, when Miss Lister was actively collecting and
was assisted by many keen searchers. Today's good result could be attributed
to the splitting of the party into two which had enabled a much larger area of
the Forest to be covered. It was with great pleasure that he had been able to
collect, amongst other leaf-inhabiting species, Didymium laxafila Lister and
Ross—a species known only from Epping Forest and now shown for the first
time at a fungus foray. Large developments of Trichia floriformis had been en-