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SIMPOSIO SOBRE A BIOTA AMAZONICA
JUNE 1966,
BELEM, BRASIL

BOTANICA
METHODS AND RESULTS OF THE MYCOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
OF TROPICAL SOUTH AMERICA
Rolf Singer
Universidad de Buenos Aires, B.Aires.

The History of mycological exploration in the South American tropics shows that until a relatively short time ago, the collecting and distributing of fungi has been a hap-hazard undertaking. The collecting has been done by very few mycologists (Rick, Sydow, Weir, Torrend, and a few others) without either exhausting the mycoflora of a single territory nor covering any larger area like the Amazonas region. The rest of the material has been gathered by phanerogamists or general collectors who did not gather any material that was not showy or easy to prepare, and the gathering very often coincided with the periods least opportune for fungus fructification.

Only recent work has given better results, either because it was organized intelligently by specialists or, increasingly, by local mycologists.

This way a more exhaustive study during the periods of maximal fruiting has become possible. Certain groups of fungi have been studied sufficiently to obtain an overall impression of the character of the American tropical mycoflora, at least as reflected by certain families or genera, as compared with the South temperate, the north temperate and the palaeotropical mycoflora. These groups are: Rusts, polypores, certain groups of agarics and boletes, the stipitate Stereums, many groups of typical soil fungi, certain groups of Pyrenomycetes, Clavariaceae, certain genera of Discomycetes.

This was possible on the basis of a climatological study of the Neotropics presented in a map, year-round collecting, and systematical exploration of the soil mycoflora. It was possible because of the creation of permanent tropical South American mycological centers (São Paulo, Recife, Tucuman, Trinidad) and