PREFACE 



This treatise on fungi is intended as a reference and textbook. 

 Its content falls naturally into two portions. The first portion, 

 included in Volume I, is a consideration of the developmental 

 morphology and taxonomy of fungi and is basic to any compre- 

 hensive study of the fungi. The second portion, included in 

 Volume II, deals more specifically with the activities of fungi. 

 It must be borne in mind, however, that we have attempted 

 throughout the treatise to stress the need for more emphasis on 

 problems relating to fungus activities. 



Much of the mvcological teaching and research of the past 

 has centered around taxonomy and classification. Some em- 

 phasis has necessarily been placed on morphology and cytology, 

 but this phase of inquiry has been largely an adjunct to taxonomy 

 and classification. It is, of course, essential that one should be 

 able to name a given fungus correctly, to place it in a suitable 

 packet, and to arrange it in some phvlogenetic category in an 

 herbarium. This should, however, not be the end, as it all too 

 commonly is, but rather the beginning of interest in the particular 

 fungus. It would appear to be much more stimulating if, after 

 having received a more or less "formal" introduction to a fungus, 

 one were to turn his attention to its activities. To determine 

 what a fungus does and how it does it and to attempt to approxi- 

 mate an answer to why it reacts in a certain manner have always 

 appealed to us as of more concern than its name. The primary 

 purpose of Volume II is therefore to direct attention away from 

 time-honored and well-beaten paths of mycological thinking and 

 to focus it on this different point of view. 



To stress the activities of fungi with a minimum of considera- 

 tion to taxonomic aspects has been no easy task. It has required, 

 first of all, a fusion of the mycological concepts of two genera- 

 tions. This in itself was a departure from tradition; although it 

 presented very real difficulties, thev have not been insurmount- 

 able. Another disconcerting factor which entered into the con- 

 siderations of how to emphasize the problems of fungus behavior 



