6 Wood Discoloration

Preface
This book is the updated revision of the German edition “Holz- und Baumpilze”
from 1994. Errors were corrected and new results were included. Particularly
the chapter “Identification” was supplemented by molecular techniques. I realize
that a one-author book on a relatively broad topic must include errors
and also may have ignored recent literature. Strictly speaking, one should only
write about things that they have experienced themselves, in the case of point
this only concerns some aspects of bacteria and those fungi which inhabit the
xylem of dead wood. Thus, current “secondary literature” was used for those
chapters that are “on the edge” of my own research interest.
For better readability, the authors of fungal names are not mentioned in
the text, but summarized in an appendix. Fungal synonyms are also not given.
These are available from Index Fungorum (www.indexfungorum.org/names/
names.asp). Fungal names cited from (older) publications were transferred to
the current version.
Thanks for general advice go to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Walter Liese, for critical
reading to Prof. Dr. Dirk Dujesiefken (Chap. 8.2), Dr. Hubert Willeitner,
and Dr. Peter Jüngel (Chap. 7.4), to Mrs. Ute Moreth for providing experimental
data, Dr. Tobias Huckfeldt for several photographs, many colleagues for
permission to use their photographs, Mrs. Christina Waitkus for transferring
many pictures in an electronic version, to Springer-Verlag, particularly Mrs.
UrsulaGrammandDr.D.Czeschlik,forco-operation,toMr.JardiMullinaxfor
making my English understandable, and to Mrs. Cornelia Gründer for careful
printing.
Hamburg, December 2005 Olaf Schmidt