Margery Smith was a pioneer fungimapper and a passionate advocate for fungi. With moves to auction Margery’s collection of stamps, donated to Fungimap, I thought it a good opportunity to have a look in the Fungimap archives held at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, and re-read the letters that Margery sent to Fungimap.

Margery Smith was among the first people to be in touch in the mid-1990s when Fungimap trialled a mapping scheme for Australian fungi. Marjorie lived in Tumut and her initial communication with Fungimap was a letter dated 27 March 1996:

A friend passed on a copy of the Bogong Bulletin [where there was a notice about the new Fungimap scheme] because as he put it I am a “Fungi Fanatic”. I had been preferring to call myself an amateur Mycologist! I was most interested in the idea of a Fungi map. Is this map to be confined to Victoria or are you interested in sightings in N.S.W. as well? I am a bushwalker and spend a good deal of my time walking in the high country of this state. I have hundreds of photos of both fungi and lichen. I am fascinated by lichen. Is the red Star fish fungi refereed to, in the bulletin, Aseroe rubra? I have photographed it recently on Bar Ridge above the Snowy River, on Michelago Mountain and Numbenanga Mountain … also beside Cotterils Fire Trail and at Round Mountain (Jagungal Wilderness). Should you be interested I can provide grid refs.

I wrote back, asking for grid references, which Margery provided. In time, information on records such as these was added to the Fungimap database and eventually provided to the Atlas of Living Australia. Margery provided more than 150 records of a variety of fungi from Tumut and surrounds, often accompanied by photographs. With such easy access now to hundreds of thousands of records of fungi, it can be hard to imagine how little information was readily available about the distribution of Australian fungi back when Fungimap commenced. Margery’s geo-referenced records and all those of the early recorders were a great stimulus to keep collecting data.

Just as importantly, communications with the recorders led to the realisation that there were numerous people around Australia with an interest in fungi, but often not connected up with any others. This was certainly the case for Margery, living in a small regional town. The personal connections that were made at that time between the recorders and the people handling the records in the Fungimap office, then at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, reinforced the need for a regular Fungimap Newsletter, to keep everyone in touch with fungi news. Connecting people from around Australia with an interest in fungi was also one of the motivations for organising meetings, such as the Fungimap Conferences.

In 2005, Margery wrote to Fungimap, on news that Fungimap was to incorporate and hold a meeting in Tasmania:

 “… I am most upset that because of my husband’s health I will be unable to attend the Conference in Tasmania. … I can well understand the necessity to incorporate and think it is wonderful and a great credit to … all … involved that the scheme has progressed so well from its small beginnings when we only had six or eight targets.”

Margery was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2002 in recognition of her “Service to the environment, particularly the Kosciuszko National Park, through the identification and preservation of the bio-diversity of the Park and the mapping and recording of its heritage sites”. Margery was a pioneer in her passionate and persistent advocacy for the recognition of fungi in management at a local level:

“I have been trying to get some recognition of the non-vascular plants incorporated into the Plan of Management which is currently being written for Kosciuszko National Park … After my submission to the Draft Plan – [an objective] “Facilitating research that improves the knowledge base of non-vascular plant species (lichen, mosses, fungi, liverworts) of the park” was included but given a low priority. A low priority in reality means it has little chance. I have objected strongly, giving it priority over all my other concerns, and have had some response from those studying the submissions but I seem to be a lone voice.”

Margery continued to record fungi, and wrote in 2017, when in her 90s:

 “On doing my exercise with a walker .. to my amazement [I] found this fungus … which I have not encountered before nor can I find it in any of my books.”

I was able to identify the fungus as Abortiporus biennis.

At this time, Margery contacted Fungimap and organised to donate her collection of stamps featuring fungi from numerous different countries around the world. I don’t know how long Margery had been collecting stamps, or how she sourced the stamps, but they are neatly arranged in three albums, often in sets from a particular county and including also some first day covers. Margery’s donation of her stamp collection to Fungimap is testament to the value she placed on her connections with Fungimap that spanned several decades.

 

Tom May

Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria