An Old Suffolk Naturalist G. P. Hope

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AN OLD SUFFOLK NATURALIST

AN

OLD

SUFFOLK

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NATURALIST:

G . P . HOPE, M.A. BY CANON WALLER AND M I S S A L I N E IRENE DOROTHEA H O P E .

Miss Dorothea, our n e w Member, is doubtless a daughter of m y old friend Hope, who had Peewit-Farm, known by its imposing eagle gateway, at Hollesley as a week-end place : it must be nearly forty years since I remember her as quite a young girl. H e r father was a good all-round field-Naturalist and, I believe, had a fine collection of Birds with their Eggs ; b u t also he was a keen Lepidopterist, and interested in other Orders of Insects as well. H e it was who introduced m e to Irrorella and Castrensis at Shingles t r e e t ; and I well remember his excitement when he secured a specimen of Sphinx pinastri, Aying over Honeysuckle in his garden at P e e w i t : it was a great rarity in those days (Trans, supra i, 31). H e most carefully preserved Montagues Harriers, which nested among the heather o n his small estate (cf. Babington's Birds, 256). Indeed, H o p e was a Naturalist of no mean order ; he was well versed in the habits of all the local Birds, Beasts, &c. ; a good friend, a charming companion, with most infectious enthusiasm and great generousity, by which my collection of M o t h s was m u c h enriched.—A.P.W. O n account of Dorothea's health, the family migrated to T o r q u a y in 1 9 2 0 ; a n d t h e r e m y f a t h e r , GEORGE PALMER HOPE,

who had been born on 17 J u n e 1845, died on 18 October 1926. I am not aware of any connection with the Revd. F . W . H o p e of 1787-1862: H o p e is a locally common name. Most of m y Father's paternal folk hailed f r o m Northamptonshire ; in fact some relationship with the Revd. Isaac Watts has been suggested, b u t no one can teil m e how it comes about. For, apart f r o m m y brother and his family of one son with grandson, another u n married son and a daughter as well as an unmarried nephew, w e possess only cousins in Australia. M y F a t h e r rented the M a n o r farm in Hollesley, b u t had to give it u p before 1914. W e actually lived at Havering Grange near Romford, which my G r a n d f a t h e r , Stephen Charles H o p e , who died in 1872 some years before my Father's marriage, had bought in 1844-5 and migrated to f r o m Tottenham. GEORGE PALMER was an Eton and Caius man, who took his degree in 1871, following his F a t h e r and Uncle Palmer as a stockbroker. F r o m his M o t h e r ' s people, the Yorkshire Richardsons, he inherited great mechanical skill. H e was most versatile, and there were few subjects f r o m gardening to organ-building of which he did not know something. His main collection of Birds is in Chelmsford M u s e u m ; a fine one, as nearly all the specimens were set u p by himself with his own painted environment. M o s t of the entomological specimens, with a few inferior Birds, are at


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AN OLD SUFFOLK NATURALIST

Torquay. At one time he trawled Coelenterata Jel'yfish off Harwich (Vict. Hist. 1911, 89) & he collected Mollusca, mainly pliocene specimens from the Red Crag of Felixtow. Unfortunately I am unaware that he ever published anything relating to Natural Science.

SUFFOLK MOULD- AND B Y ARTHUR M A Y F I E L D ,

SMUT-FUNGI. F.L.S.

THE Hyphomycetes are imperfect fungi, being for the most part the conidial stages of the Ascomycetes. They bear their spores on septate hyphaj, exterior to the host-plants and not in pycnidia or pustules as in the Ccelomycetes (see Trans., vol. iv, p. 101). The Phycomycetes are parasitic or saprophytic moulds with nonseptate mycelium. They are remarkable for being the group of fungi in which sexual fertilisation was earßest recognised. Several of the species are the cause of diseases destructive to garden crops. T h e Ustilaginales are parasitic in the tissues of flowering plants, especially those of cereals and other grasses, producing the masses of dark-coloured spores which form the well-known ' s m u t ' of wheat, oats, etc.—For their determination I have tapped (1) M C. Cooke's 1871 Handbook of British Fungi, and (2) 1878 Microscopic F u n g i ; (3) G. Massee's 1893-5 British Fungus Flora ; (4) E. M. Wakefield & G. R. Bisby's 1941 List of Hyphomycetes Recorded for Britain, in Trans. Brit. Myc. Soc., vol. xxv ; &c. Except where otherwise indicated, the fungi listed hereunder were collected in the parish of Mendlesham. A few localities (initialled H. & S.) have been quoted from Henslow and Skepper's ' Flora of Suffolk ' 1860, and I have again gratefully to acknowledge the valuable assistance of Messrs. E. A. Elbs (E.A.E.) and R Burn. The following list of 245 species, of which 203 are NEW records for Suffolk, is far from being exhaustive ; further research will undoubtedly reveal many other species, especially of the Phycomycetes. HYPHOMYCETES.

Acremonium verticillatum Link. On rotten wood. Acrospeira asperospora (Cooke & Mass.) Wilt. On straw. Acrostalagmus cinnabarinus Corda. On potato haulm and old cabbage stalks. Acrothecium simplex B. & Br. On an old nettle stem. A. xylogenum Grove. On an old cabbage stalk. JEgerita Candida Pers. On rotten wood. Alternaria brassicce (Berk.) Sacc. On kale. A. Cheiranthi (Lib.) Boll. On Cheiranthus. A. Dianthi Stev. & Hall. On Dianthus barbatus. A. tenuis Nees. On decaying herbaceous stems and leaves.


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