BESSEY: MYCOLOGY 239 



author of many lesser contributions and of the more than 300-page monograph 

 of the Peronosporaceae (1903), with many beautiful and accurate illustrations. 

 Giovanni Battista Traverso was one of the leaders in the publication by the 

 Societa Botanica Italica of the work Flora Italica Cryptogama (I, Fungi; III, 

 Lichens) (1905-1938). Giovanni Bresadola lived most of his life in Trentino, 

 while it was still in Austria, but he was an Italian by descent. His Iconographia 

 Mycologica (1927-1932), one of the outstanding works for the fungi of south- 

 ern Europe, was published in Milan by the Societa Botanica Italica. His Fungi 

 Tridentini was published (1881, 1892) in Trieste. Other Italian mycologists are 

 Teodoro Ferraris and Ralfaele Ciferri. 



Carlos Luis Spegazzini (b. 1858, d. 1926), of Italian nativity, settled in 

 Buenos Aires and for several decades described hundreds of new species and 

 a good many new genera of fungi. It may well be said that his work was the 

 foundation upon which the knowledge of the rich mycological flora of Argen- 

 tina and adjacent lands was founded. In such a vast country as Brazil with 

 its varied climates, soils, and altitudes very much study still remains to be done 

 on the systematic mycology of the republic. Professor Camillo Torrend pub- 

 lished (1920-1935) a series of studies on the Polyporaceae of Brazil. Father 

 Johann Rick, for many years a resident of the southernmost state of that country, 

 Rio Grande do Sul, collected and studied the fungi. His interest was mainly in 

 the Discomycetes, the larger Sphaeriales, the Thelephoraceae, and the Polypo- 

 raceae (Rick, 1931-1936). The studies of the Brazilian fungi are now being pub- 

 lished by Ahmes Pinta Viegas and A. Ribeiro Texeira, chiefly in the periodical 

 Bragantia. For Venezuela and adjacent areas, aside from the studies by my- 

 cologists from the United States and Germany, the most extensive publication 

 is that by Chardon and Toro (1934). 



In Africa the main published work on systematic mycology in recent years in 

 the Union of South Africa is that by Ethel M. Doidge of Pretoria and by P. A. 

 van der Byl and Len Verwoerd of the University of Stellenbosch. From Uganda 

 in the center of equatorial Africa we have extensive lists of fungi, including 

 many new species, from the pen of C. G. Hansford, based upon extensive col- 

 lections and studies made by him during his residence there. On the whole, 

 however, the vast continent of Africa presents a mycological void. The Italians 

 have published some lists of fungi collected by them from Eritrea and Italian 

 Somaliland; and from Egypt Melchers (1931) published a check list of plant 

 diseases and fungi, but that is from a rather limited area. 



In Asia the regions where active work in the study of the mycological flora 

 has been carried on have been rather limited. In Japan, and more recently in 

 China, in Ceylon, India, the East Indian islands, and the Philippines much has 

 been done but very much more remains to be accomplished. The Russians have 

 carried on quite extensive mycological explorations in Siberia and Russian cen- 

 tral Asia, but that is so vast an area with such extremes of climate and vege- 

 tation that only a good beginning has so far been accomplished. Tlie drier areas 

 of southwestern Asia naturally have fewer fungi, but in the more humid val- 

 leys separated by broad desert areas one would expect a high occurrence of 

 endemism. A little work has been done by botanical explorers in Iran, and at 

 present the botanists of Israeli and of Turkey are active, but they have as 

 yet barely scratched the surface. The enormous high mass of Tibet, Afghanis- 



