Forest Fungi of Central India

Classification of plants in general and fungi in particular is a neglected discipline and there are very few institutions where the work is going on. This may be due to the modern approach of molecular biology for taxonomic determinations. It is also due to the indirect relation of human being with fungi. There are only few fungi directly related and utilized by human being. Although mycophagy (using fungi as foot) is a practice since ancient time of Buddha but till now it is restricted to a very lesser population. However, some forest fauna directly eat fruit bodies of macro fungi.Fungi play a very important role in growth of forest trees and balance of forest ecosystem. Some fungi like mycorrhizal fungi directly associated with growth of forest trees by helping them in nutrient uptake. Besides mycorrhizal fungi there are fungi, which play an important role in decomposition of forest litter and nutrient cycling. Off course there are some fungi, which are harmful to forest plant causing damage to root system, stem, branches, foliage, seed, wood, etc. Foliage fungi destroy the leaves in standing trees, for example lendia and dhawa, which naturally attract the attention of mycologists and forest pathologists. Wood decay fungi destroy a lost of wood and timber every year in standing trees as well as in wood depots. In the recent past special attention of man is on edible and medicinal fungi occurring in the organically grown forests. A person who taste naturally occurring pleuroti, termitomyces, tuber, etc., can never forgot them. Utilization of wood decaying fungi and poisonous mushrooms in medicine is under intensive research. Despite the fact that the fungi, which at present has got a status of its own kingdown, play a very important role in forest ecosystem are less explored. An effort has been made by the Tropical Forest Research Institute, Jabalpur to explore and study them. In the present book, which is forest of this kind, we compile all fungi occurring in forest of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. A large number of collections of forest fungi has been made from forest of the Central India and preserved at mycology herbarium of the institute; the fungi were identified and documented. Many fungi were found new to science, while many others are reported as new host and fungal records from India are reported in the present work. The present work will be helpful in developing TFRI as center for taxonomy of fungi and an identification service for forest will be provided by thus institute in near future. In the present work we compile all fungi with their full description and illustrations. In this endeavour 17 lower fungi, 187 ascomycete, 65 basidiomycete were described and systematically arranged following the recent classification.