IVRI B 407.pdf

iv lNTROl)UCTION.
such as the entomogenous species and those cultivated by termites. Many of the
fungi occurring in Ceylon, and still unknown in India, will probably be found
when more thorough collections are made in the south of the Peninsula.
This brief sketch covers but imperfectly the development of the knowledge of
Indian fungi. The Bibliography, however, tells the story more fully.
IlL- THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FUNGI.
From an examination of the List of Species it may be seen that the following
numbers and percentages of the fungi recorded for India were firat described from
India :-
Phycomycetes 18 speoies
Ascomycetes 233
UstiJagmales 51
Uredinales 219
Percent.
24
49
51
57
We have not checked the remainder of the Basidiomycetes, not the Fungi Imperfecti,
but similar figures would be obtained in these groups. Of the four groups
mentioned, 521 species out of a total of 1,035, or approximately 50 per cent., were
first described fro;rn India. This docs not mean, however, that India has a high
percentage of endemic fungi: many of these species, though first described from
India, are now known from other countries. As a matter of fact, since India, as
Hooker mentions, has a low percentage of endemic Phanerogams, so it has also
doubtless a low percentage of endemic fungi. The figures presented only indicate
that, poorly though the fungi of India may be known, they are nevertheless better
known there than in most other similar tropical or subtropical areas.
The distribution of fungi over the world is still so imperfectly known. as to render
uncertain an attempt to make 'a general analysis of the distribution elsewhere of
the fungi recorded for India. In any attempt of this sort, one is hampered
not only by a lack of knowledge of distribution of the vast majority of fungi,
but also by a feeling that misdeterminations entered in the records vitiate any
conclusions. These errors of determination are, however, of two kinds which
tend to neutralize each other: either that of a previously known fungus
having been given a new name, or that of a new fungus having been referred
erroneously to an old species. In view of the importance and interest of assembling
such data as are available, we have made the following comparisons, with full
realization of the uncertainties involved.
Comparison oj the fwngi oj India, oj the Dutch East Indies, and. oj Manitoba.
Among the few areas outside of Europe which have brought together lists of fungi ..
comparable in extent with thc present list of Indian fungi, we have chosen the Dutch
East Indies and Manitoba. The former is a tropical area geographically not far
distant from India, but with a phanerogamic flora quite different, especially from
that of the parts of India in which mycological collections have chiefly been made.
Van Overeem * has brought together a list of the fungi recorded there up to about
• Van Overeem-de Haas, C. et D. Verzeichnis der in NiederUi.ndisch Ost-Indien bis dem Jahre
1920 gefundenen Myxomycetes, Fungi und Lichenes.-Bull. Jard. Bot. Buiteuzorg, SCr. 3, IV, fasc.
I, 146 pp., 1922.