Assaulting the Language Barrier

The study of fungi has been pursued with scientific dedication by the French, the Catalans, Italians, Anglo-Saxons, Russians, Scandinavians. In the early 1930s, the then Director of the Institute of Catalan Studies, the famous naturalist Dr Font i Quer, began to catalogue the untold species of fungi and their varieties appearing in the mountains and plains of Catalonia. Altogether, 627 species were identified and described. He was then joined by enthusiastic mycologists – English, French and American – who, embarking on a ‘Five Year Mycological Plan’, in a few seasons brought the list up to 1458 species (see Bibliography, under Font i Quer). Of these, at most 200 species were known, named, used by country people.