Retirement of Dr Machiel Noordeloos

After a mycological career of almost 40 years at the Rijksherbarium Leiden (now Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity NCB-Naturalis), Machiel Noordeloos retired from his post in July 2011. His departure marks the end of a period of a strong taxonomic tradition founded by R.A. Maas Geesteranus and M. Donk, followed by J. van Brummelen, C. Bas and W. Jülich. Machiel will continue in mycology, sharing his knowledge with others, but in a more leisurely way, leaving more time for his other passions, music and painting.
Many mycological colleagues and friends from the Netherlands and Belgium.
attended the farewell lecture and party, where he among other things was presented a full set of water soluble oil paints.

New book on Strophariaceae

Just published: a monograph of the Strophariaceae family for Europe:
Machiel Noordeloos, Strophariaceae s.l. in Fungi Europei vol. 13. 648 pp, 43 plates with line-drawings, and 377 colored photographs. Edizioni Candusso, 2011. Price Euro 69.--


This monograph combines up to date knowledge of the species with a modern classification, based on morphology and recent molecular/phylogenetic studies.

The book contains keys, descriptions and line drawings of about 100 species, distributed over 12 genera: Stropharia, Leratiomyces, Hemistropharia, Hypholoma, Deconica, Psilocybe, Pholiota, Flammula, Hemipholiota, Kuehneromyces, Meottomyces, and Phaeonematoloma. In additions most species have been depicted in colour, often with several photographs, in order to show variability. Micrographs of spores and cystidia are also given.

The book can be obtained from the publisher: www.edizionicandusso.it, booksellers and the author.

Bhutan 5

So, finishing the Bhutan trip we know that the medium high areas around the capital Thimphu will not be "in full fruitbody" till maybe middle of Juli, whereas the lowlands with their stronger monsoon rain is filled with Russulas and Boletes already in middle June. Also, we are as always left with a number of new weird fungi which doesn't fit into our European concepts. Here is a couple:

A Mycena with leopard-speckled pileus:

Another Mycena with pale violet colours and cystidia everywhere:

A species we first treated as a Chrysomphalina till we discovered its weird chilocystidia and amyloid spores:

   

Our notes says:

    Spores globose to subglobose; spores smooth; spores amyloid; spores length 6,5-8 µm, width 5-6 µm; basidia 4-spored; cheilocystidia rather extreme with a swollen basal part and an extremely outdrawn thin apical part, to 80 µm.

There are many more peculiar specimens in the capsules right now and we just hope eventually to get these out of Bhutan for further study. For now I will just close with a couple of nice pictures from the trip:

The Paro Dzong

Rice-country

And some butterflies

Mexican mystery fungus also Bhutanese?

During our workshop in Thimphu, Bhutan this month we have encountered what would appear to to match Campanophyllum proboscideum, a fungus known from Mexico south to Ecuador (and further down?). It it attached by a peculiar snout-like dorsal extension - hence the epithet. It was found on 4 big logs in a wet montane forest in upper Thimphu Valley (Dodena) and was photographed by Morten Christensen.

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?

Bhutan 3

Very typical for Bhutan many fungi looks almost like in Europe, and then again there is something wrong. Like the "Calocera viscosa" of which we have had both very slender versions and this very openly branched type:

In the microscope it has aseptate spores which are a little to large, so, not C. viscosa sensu stricto (miss good Calocera literature).

By the way the orchids are small but numerous at 3000 m height (click the pictures to enlarge):

Bhutan 2

Now we are a couple of days into our local Bhutanese fungal workshop and there is time for a small blog.

We have a class of six local students which are very interested in fungi (always a pleasure). Here Thomas Læssøe is giving an introduction to collecting with Mikako Sasa watching:

And here is our team discussing fungi in the afternoon in front of the lab:

Here some fungi (nice but not super-exotic): 

A nice Hydropus marginella with dark gill edges:

One of the numerous, unidentified species of Marasmius: 

A Calocera, maybe C. viscosa:

 

A small, yellow Mycena:

And  a yellow billed blue magpie watching: