THE SAPROPHYTIC FUXGI OF EASTERN IOWA. 



T. H. McBRIDE. 



The fungi make appeal to our interest in a variety of ways. 

 In the first place many are highly esteemed as articles of food 

 — have been for ages. Again all exhibit a certain kind of 

 beauty whether of color or form; all attain to a certain per- 

 fection in the performance of their work as organized struct- 

 ures and accordingly for ever}- investigator of the natural 

 world possess a charm not to be put aside. In the third place 

 many fungi are notorious parasites, assailing more or less seri- 

 ously the food-producing plants of the world, and affecting to 

 a greater or less degree the well-being and prosperity of man. 

 For these and other reasons which might be named the author 

 believes this class in the vegetable world deserving of more 

 and closer attention than it has heretofore received. The 

 great obstacle in the way of the study of these plants has ever 

 been the lack of proper, easily accessible literature. For our 

 American fungi the literature is not lacking, but is simply not 

 easily accessible. Descriptions there are, but lost in sundry 

 reports or spread on the proceedings of local societies, so that 

 the very best work of our American systematists is largely 

 unappreciated, and so far fails to accomplish the mission it 

 might fill under different circumstances. Berkeley's Outhnes 

 of British Fungology, Cooke's Handbook of British Fungi, 

 but especially the reports of the state botanist of New York, 

 and Morgan's Mycologic Flora of the Miami Valley are our 

 best EngUsh sources of information. 



It IS the purpose of the author to begin here a somewhat 

 extended review of our Iowa fungi giving lists of such as have 

 been recognized. More particular attention will be paid to 

 the saprophytic forms which will so far be described, as to 



