BESSEY: MYCOLOGY 241 



work. This may also be said of mycological work in the Philippines, where con- 

 siderable work was done by American and European botanists, aided by very 

 able students of Philippine birth; but the occupation of the islands by the Jap- 

 anese in 1941 and the destruction of the centers of research put an end for 

 many years to mycological studies. 



The situation has been much brighter in Australasia. The last four decades 

 have seen the publication of some excellent contributions to the knowledge of 

 the smuts, rusts, Polyporaceae, and Gasteromyeetes of New Zealand by G. H. 

 Cunningham (1924 to 1950) as well as of the Polyporaceae and Gasteromyeetes 

 of Australia, by the same author (1944, 1950). Daniel MeAlpine published a 

 book on the fungi of Australia (1895) and one book each on the rusts (1906) 

 and smuts (1910) of Australia. On the larger woody and fleshy fungi John 

 Burton Cleland published a number of contributions, some alone (1934-1935) 

 and some with the collaboration of Edwin Cheel (1914—1931) or of Leonard 

 Rodway (1928-1929). Lillian Eraser (1933-1935, 1936) and Eileen E. Fisher 

 (1939, 1950) have studied the sooty molds and related fungi of Australia. Thus 

 it is apparent that systematic mycology has progressed far in Australasia in 

 some of the important groups of fungi. 



Mycological "Work in North America 



In North America the earliest important contributions to the knowledge 

 of the fungi of the country were made by the Reverend Lewis David von 

 Schweinitz (b. 1780, d. 1834). He collected fungi extensively in North Caro- 

 lina and in Pennsylvania and his two publications (1822, 1832) listed more 

 than 2,000 species, many hundreds of which he described as new to science. He 

 possessed a compound microscope, good for that period. He followed in the 

 main the system of Fries. Accordingly the group called by him (1832) Aseo- 

 mycetes included both Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes as these terms are now 

 used. His class Hymenomycetes included Discomycetes as well as Agaricales and 

 Polyporales of the more recent classification. 



After the death of von Schweinitz in 1834 the chief botanical interest in 

 this country for the next thirty years or more was in the collecting and naming 

 of the vascular plants of the West, which was rapidly being explored and set- 

 tled. However, there were three botanists who maintained the interest in fungi 

 during this period. The Reverend Moses Ashley Curtis (b. 1808, d. 1872) lived 

 the greater part of his life in North Carolina (see Shear and Stevens, 1919). He 

 became interested in the lichens in the late 1830 's and was for years in close 

 correspondence with Edward Tuckerman, to whom he sent many specimens 

 with full notes. In the mid-1840's he began a correspondence with M. J. Berke- 

 ley that lasted until his death. He sent several thousand specimens of fungi to 

 Berkeley, always with careful data. Many of them were described as new spe- 

 cies with the authority given as "B. and C." The two published a joint contri- 

 bution (1850-1854) upon the fungi in the herbarium of von Schweinitz which had 

 come into the possession of the Philadelphia Academy of Science. Curtis ex- 

 changed specimens freely with Michener, Ravenel, and other botanists. The 

 larger portion of his herbarium is now in the British Museum but a good many 

 of his specimens are in the Farlow Herbarium of Harvard University. Ezra 



