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COPROPHILOUS FUNGI. 



Abstract cf Address delivered at Cadeby, 23rd September 1901, at the 

 Yorkshire Fungus Foray. 



GEORGE MASSEE, F.L.S., F.R.H.S., 

 Royal Herbarium, Keiv ; Chairman of the Yorkshire Mycological Committee. 



Notwithstanding the close and continued attention paid to the 

 Yorkshire Mycologic Flora during- the past quarter of a century 

 by members of the Y.N.U., much — very much — remains to be 

 done even before we can assume that we possess a full know- 

 ledge as to the number of species indigenous to the county. 



The above remark must not be interpreted as expressing- my 

 desire for a bald list of names, which would possess about the 

 same value, and convey the same amount of information, as an 

 enumeration of the number and relative positions of the telegraph 

 posts doing duty in the county at any given moment. Further- 

 more, records on the authority of ' Anon ' cannot be accepted ; 

 therefore the fact should be grasped that reproducing the same 

 is worse than useless, inasmuch as it entails expense without 

 any adequate return. 



On the other hand, a list of fungi, accompanied by notes, 

 enumerating the substratum — or, in the case of parasites, the 

 host on which the fungus is growing — is of value not only to 

 local people but to mycologists in every part of the world, as 

 bearing on the interesting problem of parasite and host, and 

 other questions of scientific and economic importance. It is the 

 ambition on the part of the members of the Mycological Committee 

 of the Union to attempt and their hope to succeed in presenting 

 an account of Yorkshire fungi on the lines indicated above, to 

 the readers of this journal in the near future. 



Fungi requiring organic food, either in a dead or living form, 

 naturally follow in the wake of the so-called higher plants, whose 

 privilege it mainly is to supply such food ; hence, at first sight it 

 might be imagined that the geographical distribution of fungi 

 would mainly depend on that of the plants furnishing the required 

 food, and such to a great extent, especially in the case of parasitic 

 fungi, appears to be the fact. Nevertheless there are many curious 

 anomalies relating to the distribution of fungi that are as yet 

 unexplained. It is difficult to account for the absence in England 

 of Amanita ccesarea Scop., a near ally of Amanita muscaria L., 

 from which it differs in having yellow gills, and more especially 



1901 November 1. 



