CHAPTEE XXVII 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



The facts from which a satisfactory account of the distribution 

 of Fungi over the world could be constructed are, even now, 

 too fragmentary for the purpose. For the more civilised and 

 best known countries there is not much difficulty, but there 

 are still immense tracts over which no mycologist has ever 

 passed, and for which no catalogue of species is known. When 

 we attempted a survey of this kind twenty years ago, we were 

 perfectly conscious of this difficulty, and in that interval very 

 few of the difficulties have been removed. Although the 

 materials are more complete than they have ever been for 

 generalisation in respect to well -explored countries, it is un- 

 fortunately true that very few of the countries then imperfectly 

 known, or wholly unknown, in this respect are in a better 

 position now than they were then. Even in Europe we are 

 still compelled to confess ignorance, almost as great as it was 

 then, of the whole of European Turkey, a great part of Eussia, 

 and the Spanish Peninsula. And this forms the stronger 

 contrast on account of the better development of our knowledge 

 respecting the remaining countries. In the northern parts of 

 the New World there has been continued activity, excepting in 

 those parts which are under British rule, where no progress 

 has been made. Of all the vast continent of Asia we are 

 nearly as ignorant as we were a quarter of a century ago. 

 For Japan there is a prospect of a better future through the 

 exertions of a few intelligent natives who are cultivating this 

 branch of botany, but China is still an unknown land, and the 

 accessions to our knowledge of British India, in its broadest 

 sense, are but few and far between. The islands are still 



