The Botany of Iceland - 01.12.1932, Page 7

FUNGI OF ICELAND
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nists Svend Andersen has, during several journeys in Iceland,
collected a herbarium of ílowering plants and vascular cryptogams,
which he has kindly lent me for examination in regard to fungi.
The mycologist N. Fabritius Buchwald visited Iceland in the
summer of 1923 and brought home a collection of 23 Icelandic
species of fungi (among which was one new species for Iceland). These
he has kindly sent me for examination.
On my journey in Iceland in 1922 my general purpose was the
investigation of fungi, while my special object was to make a study
of the Agaricaceae, the determination and description being made
in the field from fresh material. The colours were determined by
comparison with colour charts; other macroscopical characters
were noted down in the field. Microscopic characters were examined
by means of a travelling microscope, and in addition, material of
all the species was brought back in alcohol so that the microscopical
characters could subsequently be revised.
The main list of Icelandic fungi contained in this work is a
result partly of my own observations of fungi in Iceland and partly
of rny study of all the earlier lists of Icelandic fungi and of the
material on which they are based. The greater part of this material
is in the Botanical Museum of Copenhagen, and I have tested the
determination of the listed species by means of it, and, in so far as
errors were found, I have corrected them. This brings up the number
of known species of fungi in Iceland to 802, including, however,
some few species of Agaricaceae which I have not been able to
identify with known species, while, on the other hand, I have not
had sufficient material to establish them as new species.
Icelandic Localities investigated in Search of Fungi.
Large parts of the highlands in the interior are covered with
ice, and still greater areas liave a covering either of unweathered
or of only slightly weathered lava, so that these regions are almost
devoid of vegetation. It is chiefly the depressions, the erosion valleys,
and the lower coast stretches of the fiords which harbour the
vegetation necessary for the development of fungi. The collectors,
therefore, have mainly confined their investigations to such tracts.
Thus the Icelanders Ólafur Daviðsson and Stefán Stefánsson
have almost exclusively examined the fiord and river valleys of
N.W. Iceland, while HelgiJónsson has especially investigated the