Page:Makers of British botany.djvu/279

 Rh emphasized the fact that the fungi are more cosmopolitan than any other known group of plants, and that their abundance at any place during a given period was almost entirely dependent on conditions favouring the development of the higher forms of plant life, fungi only following in the wake of such, and never posing as pioneers, on account of the nature of their food. Amongst the numerous novel types of extra-European fungi described by Berkeley, it is somewhat difficult to indicate briefly even a few of the most striking forms. Perhaps his genus Broomeia stands out pre-eminent. It belongs to the puffball group of fungi, and is unique in that family—the Gasteromycetaceae—in having numerous individuals springing from, and imbedded in a common sterile base or stroma. It is a native of the Cape of Good Hope. The following is Berkeley's dedication of this genus to his friend and co-worker, C. E. Broome, M.A., of Bath. "Nomen dedi in honorem amicissimi, C. E. Broome, armigeri, Tuberacearum Anglicarum accuratissimi indagatoris, cujus pene solius laboribus extant hodie viginti species indigenae fungorum hypogaeorum." Broomeia congregata Berk., is described and figured in Hooker's London Journal of Botany, 1844. Certain club-shaped fungi parasitic on caterpillars, belonging to the genus Cordyceps, occurring on buried caterpillars in New Zealand, are the giants of their tribe, measuring up to eighteen inches in length. Finally, Berkeley first introduced to our notice many of those quaint fungi belonging to the group including our well known "stinkhorn"—Phallus impudicus L.—and cleared up many points in their structure previously unknown. Fries, the most distinguished mycologist of his time, writes as follows in his Preface to Hymenomycetes Europaei; "Desideratissima vero Synopsis Hymenomycetum extra-europearum, qualem solus praestere valebit Rev. Berkeley."

Notwithstanding Berkeley's researches on exotic fungi, a task in itself too comprehensive for most men to grapple with, he continued to study the British fungi, and, mostly in collaboration with his friend, Mr C. E. Broome, published a long series of articles in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, from 1837 down to the year 1883. In these articles 2027 species of fungi are enumerated, mostly new, or species new to Britain,