CONCERNING THE INTRODUCTION INTO 

 THE UNITED STATES OF EXTRA- 

 LIMITAL WOOD-DESTROY- 

 ING FUNGI 



James R. Weir 



Introduction 



A recent study of a number of tropical wood-destroying fungi 

 which grow on species of trees, the wood of which, either in a 

 manufactured or unmanufactured state, is imported into the 

 United States, raises a question which may well receive attention 

 from foresters and dealers in structural timbers. Our plant 

 quarantine laws provide for a close scrutiny of a great variety of 

 plant material, but no one has given much thought to the possi- 

 bility of the introduction into this country of wood-destroying 

 fungi on imported timbers. 



That fungi may be transmitted to distant parts of the country 

 by the living mycelium in the wood of structural timber in initial 

 stages of decay, is well known. A few examples in the writer's 

 experience are illuminating. At Portland, Oregon, on a white 

 oak timber which had come originally from Ohio, the sporophores 

 of Stereum frustulosum Fr. were found. This fungus has never 

 been reported from the West, and in this case was certainly 

 carried in the diseased timber. It could be easily introduced into 

 western hardwood forests by this means. At Bellingham, Wash- 

 ington, in August, 1 91 6, two species of wood-destroying fungi 

 not native to this country were collected from old timbers stacked 

 on the harbor wharves. The timbers were practically rotted and 

 evidently had been used in temporary structure work in vessels. 

 These two species, viz., Polystictus Persoonii Fr. and Trametes 

 atypus Lev. (T. aurora Ces., T. paleacea), are common in all 

 tropical and semi-tropical countries, especially in Japan and the 

 Philippines. Several collections of the latter species from the 

 Philippines, in the writer's herbarium, show that it grows on some 



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