m y c o l o g i s t 2 0 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 38 39

available at www.sciencedirect.com

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mycol

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R. T. MOORE
University of Ulster, 73 Strand Road, Coleraine BT51 3AD, U.K.

Rogers Mushrooms <www.rogersmushrooms.com> would

make an excellent electronic vade mecum for field mycology
on both sides of the Atlantic. This encyclopedic site has over
3000, freely accessible, photographs taken from Mushrooms
and other Fungi of Great Britain and Fungi of North America. Besides the comprehensive set of images, the sites internal links
include a Visual key, an Easy key, a Glossary, and a way to Buy
photos. Roger Philipss site should be a boon to field mycologists and foray groups, particularly if they have laptops or
small portable Internet devices.
The much awaited and welcome Checklist of the British &
Irish Basidiomycota by N. W. Legon & A. Henrici with P. J. Roberts, B. M. Spooner & R. Watling (ISBN 1 84246 121 4) is not easily acquired from booksellers. The easiest and quickest way to
get a copy is to purchase it on line from Kew <www.kewbooks.
com>; <sales@kewbooks.com>.
The Australian National Botanic Gardens website has
a section entitled Aboriginal use of fungi largely taken, it
says, from Fungi of Australia, vol. 1B, by Arpad Kalotas
<www.anbg.gov.au/fungi/index.html>; it incorporates several
links to distribution maps. Species aboriginals use as food
include: Choiromyces aboriginum and Mycoclelandia bulundari
that are desert, truffle-like species; Laccocephalum (Polyporus)
mylittae, Native bread, that produces large subterranean sclerotia; and Cyttaria gunnii, found only on Northofagus trees. Several fungi are used medicinally: Pycnoporus coccineus and
P. sanguineus, polypores that produce reddish-orange brackets,
are used to treat sore lips and mouths, oral thrush of babies,
and as teething rings; the tarry immature fruit bodies of Pisolithus species are used on wounds; and the hard, woody species of Phellinus are burnt and the smoke inhaled by those
with sore throats while water with scrapings from partially
charred brackets is drunk for sore throats, coughs, fevers
and diarrhoea. The powdery spores of Phellorinia herculeana
and Podaxis pistillaris are used cosmetically. The fine selection
of accompanying photographs includes a pair for Omphalotus
nidiformis, one in the dark showing its luminescense; the
aboriginals call it Chinga, a spirit name, and seem to be afraid
of it.

Information in two BBC news reports should be of particular concern to fungus groups, forays, field mycologists and the
BMS. The first report is entitled Magic mushrooms ban
becomes law <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4691899.stm>.
The Drugs Act 2005 came into effect on July 18th and ended
the situation in which fresh magic mushrooms were legal
but those which were dried or prepared for use were not.
The psychedelic chemicals in these fungi, psilocybin and psilocin, were already class A (which also includes crack cocaine
and heroin) but until now the law did not apply to fresh or raw
magic mushrooms which contain far less of the drug gramfor-gram than when dried. Under Clause 21 it is now an offence to import, export, produce, supply, possess, or possess
with intent to supply magic mushrooms, including in the
form of grow kits. Exceptions are made for people who unknowingly pick the mushrooms in the wild or find them growing in their garden. The report also includes the Home Offices
rationale for the change, the effects of taking psilocybes, the
responses of critics (who have argued the act will be difficult
to police), and the fact that the legislation does not apply to
Amanita muscaria. The Entheogen Defence Fund, formed by
mushroom retailers, intends to launch a legal challenge on
the basis that the revised law contravenes European trade
rules and the 1971 Vienna convention.
The second report, by Christine Jeavans, describes How
UKs love of mushrooms grew <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
magazine/4692359.stm>. She notes that the popularity of
magic mushrooms has soared in recent years (according to
the report above, use of the fungi has risen 40 % in a year,
with more than quarter of a million people estimated to
have taken them in 2003/04, compared with 180,000 in 2002/
03; but still a miniscule share of all drug use). This rise has
gone hand in hand with increasing availability; where,
before, the widespread and common Liberty Caps had to be
seasonally searched out in the wild; now, as it was, British
users had their pick from many local sources of not only the
native Psilocybe semilanceata, but also exotic species P. cubensis,
P mexicana (the Philosophers stone), and Copelandia (Paneolus)
cyanescens; and, according to the previous report, the vast

Net Cetera

majority of the mushrooms that were sold on the open market

came from mushroom farms in Holland. Jeavans concludes
her report with the chilling statement that the Class A

39

designation of these species in the Drugs Act 2005 could lead

to seven years in jail for possession and a possible life sentence for supplying!

doi:10.1016/j.mycol.2005.11.012

Sphaerobolus: Still exciting

I was most surprised to see, in a recent issue of Mycologia (Vol
97, no.3, 2005), a paper on Sphaerobolus by three plant pathologists of Pennsylvania State University. It seemed difficult to
understand how this famous fungus, found on very rotten
wood and on cow dung pats, could concern them. My interest
was further aroused by their description of S. ingoldii as a new
(the third) species in the genus.
As British field mycologists know, S. stellatus turns up on
most fungal forays in woodland areas. Rather conveniently,
a discharged glebal-mass, caught on a surface of appropriate
sterile agar, gives rise to a pure culture, which soon fruits if
kept in light. Cultures behave beautifully and consistently in
the laboratory.
Sphaerobolus was described and illustrated in action by
Micheli in Nova Plantarum Genera, Florence, in 1729, and
formed a major section in Bullers wonderful Researches
on Fungi vol. 5, 1933. Buller was especially concerned with it
doi:10.1016/j.mycol.2005.11.002

as a coprophilous fungus. Sphaerobolus, the story of a funguswas the title of my second BMS Presidential Address in 1972.
During the few years I played with Sphaerobolus, I used two
very distinct species: S. stellatus and one, unnamed, from
Africa, with larger basidiomes. Both were good spore-guns,
but S. stellatus completely outshot the other, in spite of its
much smaller projectiles.
It is good that even plant pathologists are moved to study
such odd-bods as Sphaerobolus.
C. T. Ingold
26, Cottage Road, Wooler, Northumberland, U.K.
0269-915X/$ see front matter
2005 The British Mycological Society.
Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.