Anniversary Address. :i 



to discover, a complete account of what we have done as a 

 Club in this interesting field of study. Nothing systematic 

 has been attempted ; the district has hardly been explored at 

 all, although Fungi are very abundant, and are at this season 

 of the year obtruding themselves on our notice. Many of 

 us are losing something of our interest in the old plants, 

 most of which we know so well, and among which it is so 

 rare to find anything new. But all around us, in field and 

 wood, on stump and leaf, are hundreds of plants which we 

 hardly know at all, and which are replete with interest to 

 any one who will observe them. Our younger botanists will 

 find here a branch of study in which there are still laurels, 

 to be won. 



If we ask ourselves the cause of this neglect of Fungology 

 among us, the answer is perhaps not far to seek. It is for 

 one thing commonly supposed to be a very difficult branch 

 of study, and no doubt like all new studies of the kind, it is 

 difficult to the beginner. The field is a vast one. In the 

 single genus Agaricus, there are about 800 species occurring 

 in Britain, which have already been classified and described, 

 Then in the other genera of the order Agaricini, there are 

 about 400 additional species, so that if you pick up a gilled 

 Fungus you have 1200 species to choose from in identifying 

 it. And the greater number of them have a very strong- 

 family likeness, so that identification is a very slow and 

 difficult process. I say nothing of the other orders of the 

 Hymenoniycetes, or of the innumerable microscopic Fungi. 

 The vastness of the field then, even if we confine ourselves 

 to the larger Fungi, as I mean to do throughout these 

 remarks, is a great discouragement at first. Further, the fact 

 that the soft Fungi cannot be preserved in any practicable 

 way, as you can preserve grasses, or mosses, or lichens in a 

 herbarium, is another difficulty in the way of pursuing this 

 study. And thirdly, the fact, arising out of the first 

 two, that so few give any attention whatever to the large 

 Fungi acts as a deterrent to others who under the force of 

 more frequent example might be induced to take the matter 

 up. But in answer to all this, it may be said, first, with 



