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The development of a suitable medium for the isolation and culture of fungi from sewage and sewage polluted water is described. Carbon/nitrogen ratios of culture media are noted. Water as a storage medium, oxygen requirements of fungi, and spore entrapment are discussed. Isolation of fungi from fresh water, polluted water, potable water, ambient water, and sludges is described and tabulated.

From 40 habitats within a waste stabilization pond system for the treatment of sewage from a small institutional dormitory and dining hall, samples of sewage, sludges, pond waters and effluents, and undisturbed and disturbed soils were collected. From these samples and from samples of materials from an adjacent stream, 54 categories of yeasts were isolated in a year-round survey. Although all of the commoner species have been isolated from human clinical materials in past work, none of the species found has been associated with human disease conditions in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.

The population of a biological system in a sewage treatment plant is formed of a fortuitous assemblage of microorganisms, members of which are continually dropped out while additional members are recruited. Many of these organisms are active throughout the year. Fewer yeasts than filamentous fungi are found by the plating technique. The population is about evenly divided between species producing their spores in dry states and in wet states. The fungus population includes species which under certain circumstances are able to use a wide variety of substrates from simple sugars to complex carbohydrates and hydrocarbons.

Fungus populations in a small waste—stabilization pond system near Lebanon, Ohio, were determined using a number of plating and enrichment culture techniques. Throughout the system, and in an adjacent stream, 212 species of filamentous fungi and yeasts were recovered. Before the system was placed in operation, few filamentous fungi and no yeasts were recovered from samples of bare soil, while after a year's operation, numbers of species increased fivefold and numbers of colonies counted increased nearly 200—fold. Additional numbers of yeasts and filamentous fungi in pond waters and sludges were present but were not sampled quantitatively. Except for November, when adverse conditions of undetermined nature reduced the fungal populations, the numbers of viable cells recovered indicate a favorable habitat for fungi. It appears certain that fungi can be counted among those saprobic organisms that play a part in the degradation and thus the removal of organic wastes from the waters of waste—stabilization ponds...

The 1968 Ohio Foray of the Mycological Society of America preceded the annual meeting of the Mycological Society with the American Institute of Biological Sciences at the Ohio State University, Columbus. The Foray took place on Labor Day weekend. On Saturday we went to an oak woodland in which some pine plantations had been developed in south central Ross County 62 miles south of Columbus in Scioto Trails State Forest and State Park (I). The area is hilly, unglaciated, and lies west of the Scioto River. Sunday we visited two hollows, coves, or valleys in the Hocking Hills in Hocking State Forest. This was mixed woodland with hardwoods, hemlock [Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carr.] and scrub pine (Pinus virginiana Mill.). In the morning we collected in Crane Hollow (II), after lunch in the picnic area at Conkle's Hollow State Park, and in the afternoon we collected in Long Hollow (III). En route to Crane Hollow we stopped briefly along S. R. 180 about 2 miles west of Enterprise, Hocking Co. (II-A). Here several interesting fungi were found among herbs and willows along a nearby creek. The Hocking Hills are characterized by rugged terrain, the gorges being cut in conglomerate sandstone commonly called Black Hand. The area is unglaciated and the forests on the cliff slopes are relatively undisturbed. Monday's trip was to Camp Lazarus Boy Scout Preserve (IV) in Delaware Co. about 20 miles north of Columbus. Here we collected in a beech-maple forest with small pine plantations on glacial till over Ohio shale along a tributary of the Olentangy River, itself a tributary of the Scioto River. We wish to thank the Ohio State Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks and Recreation, and Division of Forests and Conservation, and the management of Camp Lazarus, for permission to collect in these areas.

A description has been given of a new species of yeast,Schwanniomyces alluvius. It was isolated from moist soil of a creek bank in Ohio. The physiological properties of the new species have been compared in detail with those of the two known species of the genus.

The literature describing the use of sewage in various stages of treatment as well as sewage sludge, both settled and digested, as irrigation or fertilizer supplements is reviewed. A project is described in which anaerobically digested sewage sludge was added to a field in northwestern Pennsylvania, and aerobically digested sewage sludge was added to a field in southeastern Pennsylvania. Samples of soil were taken immediately before this addition, and immediately afterward. Samples were taken at weekly intervals for five months and all were tested for the presence of fungi. From these samples 95 species or species groups of fungi were reported of which several represent species known to produce plant disease. The extent to which populations of such fungi could build up in soils to which sewages or sludges are added frequently is unknown.

Specimens of fungi assignable to the genus Schizophyllum have been collected in all parts of the world where woody plants grow. They have aroused the interest of people from very early times as evidenced by the fact that primitive people in widely scattered areas know S. commune by specific common names and even use it as a food or as a type of "chewing gum." Specimens of Schizophyllum have aroused the interest of collectors ever since fungus fruit bodies have been collected and preserved in herbaria. Because of the similarity of species of Schizophyllum to agarics, especially in the fresh or revived condition, mycologists have classified Schizophyllum in the Agaricaceae (Killermann, 1928; Kauffman, 1918; etc.) or in the Tricholomataceae of the Agaricales (Singer, 1949). There has been some discussion (reviewed by Lohwag, 1941) in which it has been attempted to derive the genus from Skepperia, a stipitate, spathulate, stereaceous fungus usually assigned to the Thelephoraceae (sensu lato), by assuming that a lateral fusion of pilei took place.