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520 ... Hawksworth, Editor
the Nordic countries, plus another 114 known from neighbouring ones that
might be expected in the Nordic area. Following introductory sections on the
methodology used, vegetation zones and provinces, abbreviations employed
for characters and references to illustrations, and a glossary (with most useful
line drawings on the terminology for spore and cystidium shapes), are the allimportant
keys to genera. There are seven main keys based on easily recognized
features such as fruit body types, hymenium types, and spore deposit colour
– and then one to the orders covered. The arrangement is then by order, family,
and genus, arranged by order and family and not alphabetically. I found — and
I am sure many users will find — this most frustrating, necessitating repeated
reference to the inside back cover that does list the pages on which individual
genera are to be found. Preferably keys to families, and then genera, could
have been collected together, and even a synoptic classification presented over
one or two pages, but with the genera still treated alphabetically as is done
in The Lichens of Great Britain and Ireland (reviewed below). Another
pragmatic refinement to consider for a future edition would be the inclusion
of backtracking numbers in parentheses after couplet numbers in the keys,
something I always find helpful in endeavouring to determine where I went
wrong when the trail leads to a most unlikely taxon!
The bulk of the work comprises descriptions of families and genera, and
then keys to the species with a treasure-chest of information where they are
keyed out. In addition to morphological and anatomical details necessary for
a correct diagnosis, there is information on ecology, distribution, conservation
status in particular countries (using IUCN categories), references to selected
colour illustrations, and synonyms given in parentheses. The issue of edibility
is probably wisely avoided, but poisonous or hallucinogenic species are flagged.
Author citations of scientific names are provided throughout, but with no
reference to the place of publication or even the year of the work; at least the
latter would have been helpful, though information on both authors and dates is
no longer as useful as was formerly the case as this information is now available
online and free from the Index Fungorum database.
Illustrations in the text are limited to line-drawings of critical features, but
that is more than compensated for by the DVD attached to the inside back
cover which has over 4000 coloured images, as well as PDF versions of the keys,
in a new version (3.1) of MycoKey (version 2.1 is reviewed in Mycotaxon
102: 434-5, 2007). Species featured on the DVD are indicated by a symbol of
concentric rings at the end of the text where they are keyed out.
The accounts are very much at the cutting edge of mushroom taxonomy,
with both very recently described species and some names even in press. The
latter include the new family name Chromocyphellaceae cited as “Knudsen in
press” with a reference to “Petersen, Knudsen & Seberg (in press)”, but that work