SPECIES OP POLYPORACEAE IN BENGAL.
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the subtropical and North temperate regions also (from 24 to 28 N. lat) ; similarly Fomes leucophaeus was formerly reported from the North temperate, the South temperate and the subtropical regions now it has been found also in the tropical region; Fomes annularis was reported from the tropics only — now found in the North temperate region (Darjeeling) ; Polyporus secernibilis was reported from the tropics only, now found in the North temperate as well (Darjeeling) ; Polystictus tabacinus was reported from the tropics and the South temperate alone, now found in the North temperate (Darjeeling) as well ; Polyporus rubidus was reported from the tropics and the South temperate alone, now it has been found in the North temperate (Darjeeling) as well ; Daedalea flavida was reported from the tropics and South temperate alone, now found in the North temperate (Darjeeling) as well.
History of the Bengal Polyporaceae
The work on Indian fungi has been very scrappy and at irregular intervals. The earliest record of it is to be found in Hooker’s Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany , Vols. II, III, IV and VI. In 1850, Dr. Hooker collected a good number of different groups of fungi in Himalaya, Sikkim, Darjeeling and Khashya hills, these were all determined by Berkley and published under the heading of Decades of Fungi in the said volumes of the Kew Garden Miscellany. Then in 1874 stray collections of Polypores from the Calcutta*Botanic Gardens and from Burma were collected by Mr. Kurz and determined by Mr, Gurry and published in the Transactions of the Linnean Society — Series Bot . Vol. I. pp . 121 — '126, There were some notices of Indian fungi (mostly leaf fungi and Agaricaceae with a few Poly pores) by Cooke in several scattered volumes of Grevillea from 1874 to 1891. In the Kew Bulletin from 1898 — 1912 George Massee named and published a few Polypores along with Agarics from Bengal, mostly collected and sent by Mr. Burkhill — the then Economic Botanist to the Government of India. Quite recently stray collections of Polypores (mainly from Darjeeling, collected by Mr. H. G. Cave, the Curator of the Lloyd Botanic Garden) have been determined and published by Mr. Lloyd of America in his Mycological Notes. This in fact represents the whole work on Bengal Polypores. Prom Bombay and Southern India how- ever, a large number of Poly pores with other fungi were collected by Bather Blatter, Professor of Botany, St, Xavier College, Bombay and were determined by late Bather Theissan, who published them in Annales Mycologici , Vol. 9 of 1911 and Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 1912-1918 ,
