The fungi of Norfolk / by Charles B. Plowright.

  • Plowright, Charles Bagge, 1849-1910.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The fungi of Norfolk / by Charles B. Plowright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The Rev. G. Munford, of East Winch, in 1864 published a list of seventy-two species of fungi found in Norfolk. On the 29th October, 1872, the present writer communicated to the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society a list of eight hundred species; to this, during the twelve years that have since elapsed, nearly eight hundred more have been added, so that at the present time between fifteen and sixteen hundred species have been recorded in the county. This in itself indicates what an extensive and varied district is embraced. Many rare and interesting fungi have been from time to time encountered in Norfolk, some of which only appear at long intervals. Thus, Graster coliformis was figured by Dickson in 1785 from specimens found at Gillingham and Earsham, but, until 1880, when Mr. P. Hebgin was fortunate enough to find it at Hillington, it was not again met with in the county. Torrubia capitata is another instance; this was found at Holt by the lady of the Rev. Robert Francis, and sent to Sowerby, by whom it was figured in his “English Fungi,” which was published in 1779-1809. No specimen was again seen of it in Norfolk until 1879, when the Rev. Canon Du Port met with a specimen in Hockering Wood. Towards the end of the last century, Mr. Woodward found Butarrea phalloides near Norwich, and some time prior to 1836, the late Dr. J. W. Hooker found a specimen near Stoke, but since then no one has been fortunate enough to find it, although it is to be hoped it will be rediscovered some day in Norfolk. The great length of the list itself, although only a bare enumeration of the names of the Norfolk fungi, precludes any introductory and explanatory remarks which it would have been desirable otherwise to have given; but so important are many of these organisms, low though they be in the vegetable kingdom from an economic point of view including as they do the wheat mildew and the potato blight, on the one hand, the yeast plant and numerous esculent species on the other, that it is a matter of certainty they will receive more attention from naturalists in the future than they have had given them in the past. I have to thank my friends the Rev. Canon Du Port, of Mattishall, Mr. Frank Norgate, of Sparham, and Mr. J. Harvey Bloome, of Castleacre, for their kind- ness in furnishing me with lists of their additions to the 1872 list. a 2
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