Zs. P. Komáromy szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 15. 1981 (Budapest, 1981)
Babos, Margit: Mycological examination of sawdust depots in Hungary
Material and methods The purpose of my examinations was the floristical and ecological exploration of fungi - above all Basidiomycetes - occurring in sawdust depots in Hungary. In the course of observations at site, samples were taken of all the species; moreover the type of growth, and the quantitative conditions of the specimens were recorded. The rare, or problematic fungus species were greatered and preserved in a greater number of specimens. The herbarium specimens of the material dealt with in our paper are deposited in the mycological herbarium of the Botanical Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum (BP). For determining the heat requirement and heat endurance capacity of certain species, the temperature of the sawdust was measured at 10 and 20 cm depths under the fruit body. After that sporadical observations had been made in earlier years (1966, 1974, etc.), the fungus flora of the following sawdust depots was examined from 1976 to 1980 in the SW and NE boundaries of the country (Map 1.). In the examined wood-depots, above all frondose trees (mainly Quercus petraea . Quercus robur, Quercus cerris , Fagus silvatica , in certain shops Roblnia pseudoacacia and Populus species, too) are processed. Coniferous trees (Pinus nigra, Pinus silvestris, Picea abies) got into the waste only to a small extent or only in a quite insignificant quantity. Exceptions are those wood-depots where import coniferous trees are received (e.g. Tuzsér, Mátészalka) and where therefore the waste material consists of almost 100% of pinus bark and pinus sawdust. In the collecting work, my regular collaborators were Mr. L. BABOS, Mr. A. FRIESZ, Mr. E. VÉSSEY, Mrs. M. VIRÁG, Mr. I. ZIRKELBACH, Mr. K. OTTO, Mr. L. ALBERT and Mr. Z. SARKADI. I express my thanks for their kind assistance also in this way. Problems: No accurate information could be obtained about the proportion of the species composition of the sawdust occurring in sawmills. Coenological examinations and species productivity measurements could not be carried out because conditions at sawmills are influenced by production circumstances and by the volume of production, by people living in the neighbourhood and by other factors, so that the marking of standard plots was impossible. This is even more regrettable because sometimes such good conditions could be observed that the characteristic species community grew at once in an area of 1-3 m 2 . Some of the factors that are obstacles in the examinations are worth to mention. In certain shops, the daily quantity of waste is great, and that of the fresh discharge deposited on them is also great, therefore, the depot is regularly bulldózered; the older sawdust which was already a producing layer will be covered with a new sawdust-shavings layer. In other depots, a great quantity of slat and plank are placed outside and these either cover the sawdust, or where they get into the sawdust piles loosen the sawdust too much. As a result, the conditions for the fungi become more unfavourable, the nutrient media dries out easily, cannot warm up. For the wood byproduct becoming dense, for the re-appearance of the fruit bodies a longer period is needed. Intentional and spontaneous burning, regularly change the conditions of habitat as well. In areas where the sawdust is delivered to a rubbish pit the objects thrown out into the pit cover the surface or the chemical materials pouTed out there cause damage to fungi. Besides, in most of the depots, the workers or the people living in the neighbourhood regularly pick up the fungi for food. It occurred not only once that we found only the stems of the great quantity of fungi cut by people gathering fungi.
