Volvariella surrecta: An uncommon mycoparasite

Volume 10, Part 4, November 1996

VOLVARIELLA SURRECTA : AN UNCOMMON MYCOPARASITE

Fig 1 Volvariella surrecta: immature basidiocarps growing on the caps ofClitocybe nebularis. The specimens have been removed from the plantationin which they were growing.

Fig 2 Volvariella surrecta basidiocarp (asin Fig 1), showing the pink gills after twodays in a moist chamber

Mrs Sheila Wells (A Call for Information, BMSNewsletter, February 1996) has recently askedfor information about the occurrence ofVolvariella surrecta, a mycoparasitic agaric.Numerous basidiocarps of this fungus were foundgrowing on Clitocybe nebularis in a coniferousplantation at North Park Wood, DartingtonEstate, near Totnes, Devon on 4 November 1995.Large numbers of fruit bodies of the host werearranged in a pattern suggesting that they were

developing from mycelium attached to a burieddecaying log. When collected, the spores of themycoparasite were unripe so that the gillsappeared white, but after incubation for two daysthe spores ripened (Figs 1 and 2). The speci-mens have been deposited in Herb. K.

Roland Weber & John WebsterDepartment of Biological Sciences

University of Exeter

BMS CENTENARY DINNER AT SELBY, YORKSHIRE,3 SEPTEMBER 1996

•Fig 1 Could that be M C Cooke, Carlton Rea and the Reverend W Fowler? A foray ofveteran mycologists, with their ladies, pause for a group photograph before theCentenary Dinner at the Londesborough Arms, Selby - where it all began in the 1890s.

Fig 2 BMS President John Webster, onbehalf of the Society, accepts a gift fromSvengunnar Ryman, at the Selby Dinner.