America days

In 1887, Kumagusu arrived in San Francisco. After dropping out of a business school, he stopped in Lansing, Michigan, and made his way to the university town of Ann Arbor.
There he made friends with Japanese students there, and steadily made progress with his studies through many activities: he enthusiastically read, collected specimens, subscribed to the scientific journal Nature, and published a handwritten newspaper which he let circulated among his colleague students.

In 1890, he began to communicate with the Chicago botanist William Wirt Calkins, and learned from him about lichens and mushrooms.

In 1891, Kumagusu traveled to Florida, a state with many unknown species of plants, and collected many specimens of algae and plants in Jacksonville. He once visited Key West and in Havana, Cuba, for collecting. In September 1892, he set off for England by boat, in search of further learning. He had been in the United States for around six years.

<strong>The Hayama Brothers</strong><br> Kumagusu met Hayama Shigetarō at Wakayama Junior High School. The two both went to Tokyo at the same time. However, Shigetarō returned home when he got sick, and Kumagusu followed when he dropped out. The two became closer friends in Wakayama. He met his younger brother Hayama Hanjirō around this time as well.<br> While Kumagusu was living abroad, both of Hayama brothers died at a young age of a lung illness.
The Hayama Brothers

<strong>Chinji Hyōron (Unusual Criticisms)</strong><br> This was a handwritten newspaper that Kumagusu passed around the Japanese students studying in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The first issue was eight pages, and the second 14 pages.<br> These are representative of Kumagusu’s writing during his time in the United States, and of high historical value. Kumagusu published three issues in total, of which the third has not yet been discovered.
Chinji Hyōron (Unusual Criticisms)

<strong>Collections in Cuba</strong><br> In Cuba, Kumagusu focused his collecting on lichens at the suggestion of the Chicago collector William Wirt Calkins.<br> One of the lichens Kumagusu found in Cuba was a new species that was given the name Gyalecta cubana, which he was proud of for his entire life.<br> His collecting activity was diverse. He even kept beautiful shells in matchboxes. This was also the period during which he began seriously observing slime molds.
Collections in Cuba

<strong>Travels in America</strong><br> Kumagusu, after crossing the Pacific from Yokohama to San Francisco, lived in Michigan and Florida, visiting once Cuba. After getting back to Florida, he headed through New York to England, beyond the Atlantic.
Travels in America