Table 2. Changes in the numbers of species of lichens recorded on trees in Epping Forest with
reference to the zonal scale of Hawksworth & Rose (1970).
Date Species Zone Mean winter
number sulphur dioxide
level (g m" )
1784-96 65 9-10 30
1865-68 64 7 40
1881-82 86 5-6 50-60
1909-26 49 4-5 60-70
1968-70 28 3-4 70-125
1989-91 41 4-7 35-70
Addendum
P.M. Earland-Bennett (Bull. Br. Lichen Soc. 69: 16-17, 1991: and pers. comm, (discovered 16 lichens on poplars in the Wanstead Park area,
around the south-west corner of Shoulder of Mutton Pond (TQ 407872), a site to the south of the area studied in the above survey. These
included two species not otherwise seen on trees in the Forest, Bacidia arnoldiana Korber, and Cetraria chlorophylla (Willd.) Vainio,
Fungi
G. Kibby
Introduction
On Saturday, September 11th, 1880 a meeting of the Essex Field Club was held at the then
headquarters in Buckhurst Hill and among the items presented were some fungi. These had been
collected by Mr. English - a well known naturalist and mycologist of the area - the previous afternoon
in the Lower Forest above Epping. Included amongst these were Boletus satanas, a rare bolete species
which prefers open woodlands on chalky soils, and Gyromitra esculenta an uncommon Ascomycete
which prefers acid soils under pines. This was the first record in the Forest of the bolete and only the
second of the ascomycete. Today, 121 years later, there has never been another record of Boletus
satanus and only one more record of Gyromitra esculenta.
These species typify in many respects some of the challenges and some of the problems facing anyone
who studies mycology in the Forest area. Epping Forest has one of the longest, unbroken records of
mycological collecting in the world and certainly one of the largest lists of species in Britain. But our
knowledge of some species, and even some entire genera, is in many cases woefully inadequate. A brief
glance at some of the published lists of fungi from the Forest reveals a number of species similar to those
discovered on that long ago September afternoon. Some have never been seen again, others not recorded
for many years, and we really have little idea whether they represent chance incursions into the area,
rarely to be repeated, or whether we simply have not collected in the right place at the right time.
The Forest is a large area (some 6300 acres) with many habitats and there are very few mycologists.
Some parts of the Forest have hardly been collected in for many score of years and usually only at
very specific times of the years. Organised forays by the Essex Field Club usually take place around
a very narrow band of time in the late autumn,occasionally supplemented by visits of the British
Mycological Society. To gain an accurate view of the Forest flora, collecting should take place all
through the year and over as wide an area as possible. Naturally, with only one or two active
mycologists, this is rarely possible and in any case most mycologists have very specific interests. As
is often the case with any natural history records, the lists often reflect the collectors, their interests
and their location rather than the total flora present.
We are fortunate that Epping Forest was the prime hunting ground of so many of the great early
mycologists upon whose lists our current knowledge is founded. People like John Ramsbottom, A.
A. Pearson, James Sowerby, A. & G. Lister, Edward Forster, M. C. Cooke and Worthington G. Smith,
all famous names in the history of mycology, were regular collectors in the Forest and some such as
M. C. Cooke regularly led forays for the Essex Field Club. As Ramsbottom says in The History of
Mycology in Essex (1932: 293) 'The modern study of Essex Fungi may be regarded as beginning
101