Fungi collected by a Chinese mycologist in the first half of the 20th century and saved from certain destruction during WW II are coming home to China after a decades-long sojourn at an Ivy League University. From AP:
Some 1,700 specimens will be delivered to China in the fall, including 57 considered irreplaceable. Cornell will retain fungi that can’t be divided, but make them available to scholars.
More than 70 years after their discovery, “examples of this kind almost do not exist in China, which makes this collection invaluable (for) the study of the variety, distribution and evolution of Chinese fungi,” said delegation leader Liu Yandong. “On behalf of the Chinese government, I would like to say a big thank you to Cornell University.”
Kathie Hodge, the Cornell herbarium’s director, said the fungi are invariably tiny — “just dried up leaves, most of them, or pieces of wood with a little dot of them. To an average person, they look like something you would sweep off your kitchen floor. But under the microscope they’re beautiful and exciting and incredibly diverse.”
