121 



NOTES ON SOUTH NIGERIAN MYCETOZOA. 



By C. 0. Farquharson and G. Lister, F.L.S. 



(Plate 541.) 



I. — Climate, Habitat and Collection Methods. 



By C. O. Farquharson. 



The majority of the species of Mycetozoa in the accompanying 

 list were collected at Moor Plantation, Ibadan, the headquarters of 

 the Agricultural Department of the Southern Provinces of Nigeria. 

 The other localities mentioned are Agege, Otta and Meko ; some 

 collecting was also done at Itu on the Cross River near the frontier 

 of German West Africa. 



In these districts, roughly speaking, two types of climate exist, 

 a moist and dry ; the moist climate is experienced in the south at 

 Agege and Otta, the dry at Ibadan. The Agege and Otta districts 

 adjoin each other, the former being on the Nigerian Railway, some 

 twelve miles north of Lagos. The Bush, which affords a sure 

 index of the climate of most districts, here approximates to a 

 tropical rain-forest type. Over a great area, how^ever, the forest 

 has been cleared by the natives to make farms, and the district is 

 perhaps the chief centre of cocoa-growing in the colony. Though 

 the rainfall is somewhat less than that of Lagos, which averages 

 about 70 to 80 inches, the humidity is still comparatively high ; 

 the Harmattan period of the year when the dry north wand blows 

 is scarcely noticeable and does not make its presence felt by 

 inflicting any special discomfort. The mean maximum shade 

 temperature is about 85° F. The minimum rarely falls much 

 below 70° F. In the wet season the days are, on the whole, cool, 

 and the rains not too heavy or continuous. This season extends 

 roughly from March to October, opening and closing with a series 

 of tornadoes, which are short but often very violent thunder-storms 

 accompanied by a hurricane of wind and torrents of rain. About 

 August there is generally a break in the rains for two or three 

 weeks, at which time the first crop of maize is harvested. 



The southern provinces of Nigeria are of quite extraordinary 

 fertility, in spite of the rather primitive and, on the whole, waste- 

 ful methods of agriculture. The commonest soil is a rather stiff 

 red one of great depth and quite devoid of stones. In many places 

 stones are such rarities as to be " ju-ju."" 



* Every year more and more bush is cut down, and one may walk for miles 

 through native-owned cocoa plantations. All that remains of the forest is 

 plentifully littered over the clearings in the form of logs and stumps in various 

 stages of decay. It is in these clearmgs that fungus-lmnting is most profitable, 

 at least as far as the larger forms are concerned. In the forest large pileate 

 Basidiomycetes are often nearly as hard to find as Myxomycetes and are, on the 

 whole, less interesting. On the farm clearings, the fungus flora consists of a 

 most depressing recurrence of Folystictus occidentalis, P. cimiabarinus, P. 

 Persoonii, Baldinia concent rica, and the familiar Xylaria pohjmorpha. The 

 monotony is occasionally relieved by a fine Hexagovia, and in one district (Meko) 

 I was quite cheered to find that P. cinnaharinus has a somewhat rare and 

 interesting "mimic," Trametes piuiicea. 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 54. [May, 1916.] l 



