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Summary • Here, the reliability of published fungal nucleic acid sequences is tested by the critical re-evaluation of 206 named sequences obtained from public-access databases. • Sequences from the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene cluster were examined as these are commonly used to establish fungal phylogeny and evolution, and are also increasingly employed in the identification of fungi from nonculture based studies. • Fifty-one rRNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences were obtained for species of Amanita, 55 ITS sequences were obtained for species of Phoma and 100 rRNA small subunit sequences were obtained from representative genera of the order Helotiales. In each case, the fungal group was selected partly on the basis of sequences deposited by three or more laboratories in order to avoid sample bias. The results suggest that up to 20% of the sequences available for each group may be unreliable, and this proportion is supported by additional informal observations.

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the UK dispatched a number of envoys, agents and spies into the vast area between northern India and the Ottoman and Russian Empires. The information gathered by these adventurers provided the basis for British policy for the next hundred years, right down to the Great War of the twentieth century. Their publications have served as major sources of historical data, especially for Afghanistan, Iran and the area that later became Pakistan. But how their larger social context conditioned their work has not been examined sufficiently. In this chapter, I will focus on the adventures of Lieutenant Henry Pottinger, whose brief was one of the most challenging. However, he was well aware of being one of a number of Englishmen of different social classes who were doing similar things. What we learn about any one of them will shed additional light on the activities and significance of the work of the others, and in turn help us to understand the relationship between these countries and the West as it has evolved from the nineteenth century to the present day.

The evolutionary ecologist knows implicitly that his professional activity, like all other human activity, takes place within the evolutionary process. Ecology as a type of study has been pursued in various paradigms, most particularly a systemic "ecosystems" paradigm, and an evolutionary paradigm. Social scientists are prepared for questions of politics and morals, but with rare exceptions do not adequately understand ecology. The organization of human activity commonly transcends the boundaries of ecosystems or habitats, and cannot therefore be usefully analyzed in terms of the ecologists' universe of study. Baluchistan is the western province of Pakistan. The name comes from the Baluch, who comprise the majority of the population throughout most of the province, as well as in the neighboring province of Iran and the adjoining part of southern Afghanistan. In Makran, the south-western division of the province of Baluchistan in western Pakistan, and across the border in Iran, the nomadic pastoralists play a particularly significant social role.

Recent collections are reported of the downy mildew Bremia lactucae on Arctium lappa (Greater Burdock), representing a new host genus for this fungus in the British Isles, are reported. Several other hosts recently recorded as new to Britain are also reported, these being additional species of already known host genera.

This study explores species limits of a group of Clavaria species with taxonomic and nomenclatural problems and discusses the phylogeny and circumscription of the genus. The nuc 28S rDNA (28S) and internal transcribed spacer region phylog- enies resolve species relationships, and the ITS is shown to be an adequate barcode marker for Clavaria. Yellow, clamped species of Clavaria are distributed in two clades, (i) C. flavostellifera, sister to C. incarnata and C. asterospora in ITS analyses, characterized by producing ornamented spores, and (ii) C. argillacea-C. citrinorubra-C. flavipes-C. sphagni- cola, with smooth spores. Clavaria flavostellifera is described as new species based on morphological and molecular characters. Molecular evidence that sup- ports C. sphagnicola as distinct from C. argillacea is provided. The usefulness of spore ornamentation as a taxonomic character is discussed; it is present only in some taxa and then only on spores trapped in the hymenium. Descriptions of C. argillacea, C. flavipes and C. sphagnicola are provided, along with color photographs and a key to yellow species of Clavaria with clamped basidia. Camarophyllopsis and Clavicor- ona are recovered within a paraphyletic Clavaria in our 28S phylogeny. Clampless contextual hyphae and narrow, slightly thick-walled mycelial hyphae are proposed as synapomorphies of Camarophyllopsis and Clavaria.

The British and Irish checklist of Cynipoidea is revised, considerably updating the last complete checklist published in 1978. Disregarding uncertain identifications, 220 species are now known from Britain and Ireland, comprising 91 Cynipidae (including two established non-natives), 127 Figitidae and two Ibaliidae. One replacement name is proposed, Kleidotoma thomsoni Forshage, for the secondary homonym Kleidotoma tetratoma Thomson, 1861 (nec K. tetratoma (Hartig, 1841)).

Our interest in the Baloch today is different from when we first studied them over a hundred years ago. None of the published work on the Baloch explains how or why they have changed. Each publication describes a situation rather than a process and provides no link to earlier or later situations. This article uses the published work and the writer's ethnographic experience to construct a historical framework that allows us to see the Baloch in a world-historical perspective, suggesting generalizations that are helpful for understanding events in the world today.

A fungus causing conspicuous leaf spots of Prunus serotina was recently collected in Surrey, UK. It proved to represent an undescribed species which also cannot be referred to any known genus. The species is described as Miricatena prunicola gen. et sp. nov.

Two new microfungi, a fungicolous Scolecobasidium, S. rostricola sp. nov., colonising the ostiolar necks of a new coelomycete, Caducirostrum foliicola gen. & sp. nov., on leaf litter of Viburnum tinus, Arbutus unedo, Prunus laurocerasus and P. lusitanica from the U.K. and Italy, are described, illustrated and compared with other relevant taxa. Rhabdostromina, with new combinations for Dendroseptoria arrhenatheri and D. oryzopsidis, is resurrected.

This is an historical and descriptive account of 28 herbarium specimens, 27 lichens and an alga, found in the archives of Charles Chalcraft, a descendant of the Bedford family, who were dye manufacturers in Leeds, England, in the 19th century. The lichens comprise 13 different morphotypes collected in the Canary Islands and West Africa by the French botanist J. M. Despreaux between 1833 and 1839. The collections include samples of Roccella fuciformis, R. phycopsis and R. tinctoria (including the fertile morphotype R. canariensis), Ramalina crispatula and R. cupularis, two distinct morphotypes of Sticta, S. canariensis and S. dufouri, Physconia enteroxantha, Pseudevernia furfuracea var. ceratea and Pseudocyphellaria argyracea. The herbarium also includes authentic material of Parmotrema tinctorum and a probable syntype of Seirophora scorigena. Most of these species are known as a source of the purple dye orchil, which was used to dye silk and wool. © 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2011, 166, 185–211.

WOS: 000275743900019 PubMed ID: 20361512 Morchella anatolica (Ascomycota, Pezizales, Morchellaceae), a new species collected from pine forest of southwestern Anatolia, Turkey, is described and illustrated.

Corticioid fungi from the Kimberley Region of Western Australia are reviewed. 31 species are reported, of which five, Aleurodiscus kimberleyanus, Athelopsis vesicularis, Dendrothele cornivesiculosa, Hyphoderma tubulicystidium, and Phanerochaete subcrassispora are described as new. Grandinia glauca is given the new combination Grammothele glauca, and Hydnum investiens the new combination Phanerochaete investiens. A further eight species are recorded which have not previously been reported from Australia.

The morphological features and chemical compounds found in the first European collection of Calicium victorianum are compared with type material from Australia of C. piperatum F. Wilson. The phylogenetic relationships of the species are discussed by comparing its nuclear rDNA ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 with that of other species of Calicium.

Investigation of material of British smut fungi held in the national collections at kew (k) undertaken during preparation of the new checklist of British and Irish Basidiomycota (Legon et al. 2005) identified several species not hitherto known from the British Isles. These include taxa not previously recognised due to earlier, broader species concepts, as well as others based on earlier misidentifications or discovered during examination of herbarium material of their host plants. These taxa are fully reported here. In addition, amendments to nomenclature and taxonomy of other British species which have occurred since the monography by Mordue & Ainsworth (1984) are summarised.

The host range and distribution of species of Epichloe in Britain are investigated based on herbarium material held at Kew and an assessment of the literature and other available records. Six species of the genus can now be recognised in Britain, three of which are reported for the first time, and Holcus mollis is confirmed as a host for E. clarkii . A potential seventh species, E. elymi , requires confirmation as British. Brief descriptions, with host range, and a key for the identification of these species are presented.

R. W. G. Dennis, who was Head of Mycology at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for over 30 years and one of the most eminent and influential British mycologists of the 20th century, died on 7th June 2003 at the age of 92. His immense contributions to fungal taxonomy and plant pathology spanned almost 70 years and covered all major groups of fungi from the tropics to the poles. His seminal studies, frequently based on extensive and pioneering field work, have formed the basis for our understanding of the systematics of many groups, particularly amongst the discomycetes on which he was an acknowledged international authority.

Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2002). ISBN 1-85168-234-1. Many who see this review will recognize the reissue of a book they remember with some nostalgia ...

Notes on the nomenclature and taxonomy of British species recorded in the genus Tazzetta, and in its synonym Pustularia, are presented. The new combination T. scotica is proposed, with a neotype designated. Four species are recognised as British, and a key for their identification provided.

The first article in this series (Spooner, 2000) provided an introduction to cup fungi and noted that most of the larger species belong to the order Pezizales. These are commonly known as the ‘operculate cup-fungi’ based on their ascus structure – mostly thinwalled and dehiscing by an apical ‘lid’ or operculum and include an estimated 300 or so species in Britain. A key to the 13 families of Pezizales represented in Britain was provided, and two subsequent articles (Spooner 2001a, 2001b) provided keys for the identification of the British species of the family Pezizaceae. In the present article two further families, Sarcoscyphaceae and Sarcosomataceae, are considered. These families are closely related to each other, and indeed some authors have preferred not to separate them but to merge all their included species in a single family Sarcoscyphaceae. They differ significantly from other Pezizales most notably in ascus and spore characters. The asci, always non-amyloid, are rather thick-walled, with the operculum usually subapical, positioned slightly to one side of the apex – often termed ‘suboperculate’. In addition, the spores of these fungi are commonly asymmetrical, often curved or inequilateral, unlike those of almost all other Pezizales.They are also unusual in being multinucleate, otherwise characteristic in the Pezizales only of Morchellaceae. Under the microscope the ascus and spore characters are usually fairly easy to observe, but many of the species that belong in this group can be so recognised either by their particularly brightly coloured apothecia (Sarcoscyphaceae) or their dull, brown to blackish colours (Sarcosomataceae). The bright, usually red or orange colours are due to the presence of abundant carotenoid pigments, these usually being absent in the dark-coloured species in which melanin-like pigments occur instead.The apothecia of these fungi vary greatly in size and shape, some being small, sessile, discoid structures others being large, cupulate, often stalked and sometimes even compound.They occur mostly in spring and are saprotrophs, occurring on the ground or on rotting wood. Although Sarcoscyphaceae exhibits its greatest diversity in the tropics, both of these families are virtually cosmopolitan in distribution. However, they include between them no more than about 60 species in all and, in Britain, just nine species ranged in six genera have been recorded. Furthermore, it should be noted that some of the British species are rare and, regrettably, two of them, the beautiful and distinctive Microstoma protracta, and the obscure Pithya vulgaris, both known here from ancient records from only single localities, are surely now extinct in Britain. A key plus brief descriptions for the British genera and species are provided in this account.

As part of a synopsis of British Dermateaceae, descriptions of genera and keys to species for the genera Belonium to Eupropolella (subfamily Dermateoideae) are presented.

As part of a synopsis of British Dermateaceae a key to the genera of subfamily Peziculodieae is presented, together with descriptions of the genera and keys to the species.