26 January 2018

Booted Knight (Tricholoma focale)

Tricoloma focale in a conifer plantation near Rhigos (14/11/16)


I tentatively identified these fruiting bodies in 2016 as Tricholoma focale, but sent a dried specimen, some photographs and a spore print to Martyn Ainsworth in Kew for DNA sequencing. Martyn informed me today that the DNA from my samples matches that obtained from the neotype of Tricholoma focale (Heilmann-Clausen (2017): Persoonia, 38: 38-57), which is great news. Tricholoma focale is very rare in Britain and largely confined to Pine Woods in Scotland and was believed to be extinct in England and Wales There have been a few records for South Wales recently, but this is the first that has been confirmed by molecular analysis and, as such, has been accessioned into the Kew collection. It is a very notable addition the mycoflora of our conifer plantations.
Many thanks again to Martyn and his team at Kew who do an amazing job.

3 comments:

Barry Stewart said...

That is quite a remarkable record Charles. It would be interesting to construct a species-area curve at some point to see where you're at in understanding fungal diversity in these conifer forests

Charles Hipkin said...

That is a good idea.

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