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MYCOLOGY DURING THE PAST 

 FIFTY YEARS 



William H. Weston 



The opportunity to participate in this Symposium is particularly gratifying 

 to me because, by a happy coincidence, it was just fifty years ago this sum- 

 mer that a growing awareness of the fungi as objects of interest developed 

 into a dawning appreciation of their significance as material for botanical 

 investigation. In subsequent years this admiration for the potentialities of the 

 fungi has increased through continuing association with the wide range of 

 their activities, and the significant progress in the fascinating field of mycology 

 during this period has amply justified and rewarded that youthful enthusiasm. 

 The contribution of the fungi to Botany and, indeed, to Biology during the 

 last fifty years has been impressive, and it is from the point of view of this 

 notable and significant service that the progress and the outstanding achieve- 

 ments in Mycology will be considered here. 



The reason for the large part played by fungi in contributing to a half 

 century of advances in Botany lies in their striking suitability as material 

 for investigation, their notable advantages as objects of research. Some of the 

 qualities which contribute to this advantageous suitability are the facility with 

 which they may be manipulated in pure culture under controlled conditions, 

 the rapidity with which they will develop and complete their cycles, the readi- 

 ness with which they can be maintained for long-term investigation. Together 

 with these is the diversity of physiological activity which characterizes them, 

 and in this respect, among the eighty to ninety thousand species which may 

 be recognized according to taxonomic prejudice, there is shown such versatility 

 that from the array of readily available forms the investigator can with cer- 

 tainty select those especially suited to the requirements of the problem he 

 wishes to study. Furthermore, their relative simplicity permits reducing the 

 problem to comparatively simple terms divested of the complications imposed 



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