Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Iceland - more than volcanoes

Greetings from Iceland. I was so lucky to get a summerjob in this fascinating country. What do we know about Iceland? A rough cold island in the North Atlantic Ocean characterized by mostly desert-like vegetation and active volcanoes which are sending large ash clouds to Europe knocking out our air traffic? A country way off from the other European countries with sparse population which recently became famous by its economic losses due to the economy crisis? Oh, and there was something with vikings and an old language with strange Þ and ð letters ...

There is active fungal research in Iceland.
Mycologists might know that there was published a comprehensive book on Icelandic fungi by Helgi Hallgrímsson in 2010: Sveppabókin – Íslenskir sveppir og sveppafræði (website in Icelandic, but google translator is not so bad, just enter the address of the website.).

And somehow there must be more than desert-like vegetation and crazy volcanoes - a checklist (Helgi Hallgrímsson & Guðríður Gyða Eyjólfsdóttiris) is available on the internet comprising 1.531 species of "microfungi". Also nice photo galleries can be found on the web: cap fungi and others.
We even have a blog fellow in Iceland: gamlisveppur.bloggar.is.

So this is an interesting country for people interested in fungi. - And I would like to keep you up to date with Icelandic mycology and fungal experiences.
Old fruitbody of cf. Calvatia sp. - Or erupted volcano?

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