Myxotrichum chartarum, with its striking gymnothecia, should be better known. It is described and illustrated from cardboard in an unusual context and from culture.

Pneumocystis is an enigmatic organism, the clinical significance of which remained unrecognised until recently. It is a respiratory pathogen, causing pneumonia which, if untreated, is fatal. For many years its very nature was shrouded in uncertainty, but we now know unequivocally that it is a fungus and an important agent of fungal disease in certain specific settings. Pneumocystis was first seen in the lungs of guinea pigs by Carlos Chagas in 1909, and then in rat lungs by Antonio Carini. Both thought it was a type of trypanosome. In 1912, the Delanoë husband-and-wife team recognised that it was a distinct organism and named it Pneumocystis carinii, on account of the cyst-like morphology of the organism and in honour of Antonio Carini. It was first seen as an infection in humans in the 1920s, among infants with interstitial plasma cell pneumonia.

Traditional methods alone often make it difficult to identify isolates to species level. Armillaria and Cylindrocladium are examples where new technologies could achieve this quickly and reliably. Rapid identification of pathogens is of great importance in their control, especially when dealing with quarantine organisms where detection of pathogens at early stages is critical.

It cannot be denied that recent developments in sophistication, availability and cost of molecular biology techniques have had a profound effect on mycology. The ready availability of DNA sequence data has led to major developments in the study of the systematics, biochemistry and ecology of fungi. The introduction of molecular techniques has allowed significant steps to be made in genomics, and in many areas of applied mycology molecular based approaches have become routine for strain characterisation, pathogen detection and identification. Molecular methods are now starting to give major insights into how fungi function in the environment, where they are present, and how they interact with associated organisms.

It is remarkable that a highly prized, edible species such as Caesar's mushroom (Amanita caesarea (Scop.: Fr.) Pers.) should belong to the same group as the most toxic mushrooms such as the Death cap (A. phalloides (Fr.) Link), the Destroying angel (A. virosa (Fr.) Bertillon) and the Fly agaric (A. muscaria (L.) Fr.). It is a species frequently encountered in Italian restaurants, and in the market places of Italy, Spain and southern France. Clearly, the greatest care must be taken to avoid confusion with other Amanita species if it collected in the wild. It occurs in warm, dry, Mediterranean localities, typically under oak or sweet chestnut from late summer onwards, and can be found in great abundance. The restricted distribution may extend slightly into eastern Europe but not northwards.

The ‘Poor Man's Truffle’, ‘Truffles of the Desert’ or ‘Fagaa’ were much appreciated in earlier times, particularly by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, who imported them, largely from Carthage and Libya. They appear prominently in the writings of Theophrastus, Dioscorides and Pliny, using various names, such as hydnum, miso or misy. All fungal fruitbodies that grow underground are loosely termed ‘truffles’. The desert truffles, however, are only distantly related to the more highly prized true truffles (Tuber species), especially of southern Europe. Two genera are involved, the larger Terfezia Tul. & C. Tul., with verrucose spores, and Tirmania Chatin, with smooth spores. They are white to yellowish brown truffles, rather soft and fleshy, and can grow to quite a large size, on average around 3–10 cm across, and may weigh from 60–150 gm, although the largest recorded fruitbody (up to 1,000 gm) was produced by Tirmania nivea Desfontaines.

Over the past decade the use of molecular techniques has provided new ways to study old questions about how ectomycorrhizal fungi interact with each other and their environment. In their simplest form, these methods enable researchers to identify vegetative stages of fungi that would be difficult, slow, or impossible to identify by morphological or culture-based methods. This has resulted in quantitative views of complex fungal communities, which in turn have revealed new and unexpected patterns in community structure. In addition, molecular methods have been used to identify individual genotypes of fungi. This information has provided insights into the way that particular species of ectomycorrhizal fungi spread in nature. In this article we will mention the basic techniques and briefly discuss some of the findings that have resulted. Advances in this field have recently been comprehensively reviewed for scientific audiences, and we refer readers that have a more technical interest or a need to access the current literature to these reviews (Dahlberg, 2001; Horton & Bruns, 2001).

The 'Ling-zhi' (formerly 'Ling-chih') is familar to the whole of China, and it has played an important role in Chinese and Japanese culture for at least two thousand years. Images of the mushroom can be seen frequently depicted in the ancient, oriental art. It is used medicinally, with many claims of health-stimulating properties, and believed to have an effect on long life. Ling-zhi means the 'Mushroom (or herb) of Immortality' or the 'Celestial Herb', and it symbolises happiness, good fortune, good health and even immortality. In Japan it is called 'Mannen-take' ('10,000 year old Mushroom') or 'Reishi' ('Divine Mushroom'). The fungus is a hard bracket-fungus, which grows on oak, maple, elms and willows, often from the tree-roots. It is long been identified with the European 'Varnished Polypore' (Ganoderma lucidum (W. Curtis: Fr.) P. Karst.) but it is now known that this name has been applied to a number of closely related species.

The striking reddish-pink colour of the phylloplane yeast Sporobolomyces roseus was found to be due to three major carotenoid pigments which were identified by UV and mass spectra as β-carotene, torulene and torularhodin. Simple protocols for the extraction of these pigments and their visual separation by thin-layer chromatography are presented. Ultrastructurally, the pigments were localized within numerous small lipid droplets. Putative physiological roles and the biotechnological relevance of carotenoids from red yeasts are discussed.

The Inupiaq and Yup'ik Eskimos of western Alaska have used Phellinus igniarius for hundreds of years by burning the basidiocarps and mixing the ashes with tobacco. A previous publication (Mycologist 15: p.4) reported the historic use of this fungus and documented natural history museum collections of sporophores and special ornate boxes for holding the fungus ashes. When the ashes of P. igniarius were mixed with tobacco it added “a powerful kick” to the chewing tobacco. We now report new information that is disconcerting about the current widespread use of P. igniarius in many Alaska native communities. The use of the mixture of fungus ash and tobacco is being studied and treated as a serious health concern.

The long tubular branching hypha is the most important fungal growth form, although some fungi grow as discrete spherical or ellipsoidal yeast cells. Vacuoles are ubiquitous in yeast cells as well as in hyphae of filamentous fungi and can be readily stained by simple methods of dye uptake. They appear as spherical or tubular organelles of extremely variable size. Vacuoles are known or suspected to play several crucial roles in the physiology of vegetative growth. Only some of these roles are related to the activity of lytic intravacuolar enzymes. Thus, vacuoles can degrade redundant organelles, presumably recycling macromolecules, especially under conditions of nutrient starvation. They are also the destination of endocytotic vesicles originating by inward budding of the plasma membrane, thereby providing a mechanism of ‘face-lifting’ of the plasma membrane and a means of communication with the extracellular environment. Further, vacuoles store organic and inorganic nutrients, and they may detoxify the cytoplasm by sequestration of toxic substances.

The study of the evolutionary history of organisms by tracing them to common ancestors is known as phylogenetics. Over the last 20 years or so, the increasingly widespread availability of molecular data has seen the blossoming of methodologies for converting DNA information to evolutionary trees and networks. This article will attempt to give an overview of some of the methods that are available, covering data types, considerations for their use, and methods by which evolutionary ancestry can be reconstructed. Where relevant, the text will include examples of the use of these methodologies for the obligately biotrophic plasmodiophorids.

Confusion still surrounds the identify and even the common name of the causal agent of frosty pod rot of cocoa, nearly 70 years after its placement in the genus Monilia, and over 20 years since its transfer to the new genus Moniliophthora, which was erected to accommodate what was considered to be a basidiomycete anamorph. Based on molecular and cytological evidence, we confirm that the fungus belongs in the Basidiomycotina and is closely related to the witches' broom pathogen of cocoa, Crinipellis perniciosa (Tricholomataceae: Agaricales). However, the only known reproductive stage in the life-cycle does not, in fact, represent the anamorph since meiosis occurs during sporogenesis and germination. The meiospore is interpreted to be a radically modified basidium, which performs a sexual, dispersal and resting function. The genus Moniliophthora, therefore, can no longer be maintained and must be reduced to synonymy with Crinipellis. The new combination, Crinipellis roreri, is proposed.

Early in the nineteenth century John Curtis (1833) investigated flies attracted to a phalloid fructification in England. The fungus was found in some abundance on “the sand-hills near Lowestoft, Suffolk, in the middle of October”. It had a scent like violets at a distance, in the field, but was very offensive when dried. Curtis stated that it seemed “to differ materially from the Phallus foetidus Lam. (P. impudicus Linn.)”. Flies of all descriptions were much attached to the fungus and, as well as bees and beetles, seemed very fond of the “shining matter which dropped from the pileus”. The bees were not identified. A pale pinkish flush over the volva was visible in the original illustration. The fungus seems to represent Phallus hadriani Vent. (syn. P. iosmus Berk.) the basal volva of which becomes pinkish to reddish when exposed. It is also said to smell sweeter than P. impudicus, often of violets. It is the less common of the two Phallus species in Britain, being more or less restricted to coastal dunes (Pegler et al., 1995).

The paper outlines the impact of molecular biology on the identification and detection of fungi and fungus-like micro-organisms. We have tried to use as little jargon as possible but avoiding it completely is very difficult. The article is centred around the ‘pseudofungus’ Phytophthora and its closest relatives, because that is the micro-organism with which we have had most experience. Nevertheless, most of the approaches and techniques mentioned are applicable to any fungus or fungus-like organism and, in that broader sense, the article should be of interest to those with no special interest in or knowledge of Phytophthora.

Although the honey fungus (Armillaria mellea) is notorious as a common soil-borne pathogen and no woody plant appears completely immune to attack, it is frequently supposed by gardeners and others that some non-woody plants are less susceptible. Few herbaceous plants are inspected for this pathogen, and this may have limited our understanding of its epidemiology.

Phycomyces blakesleeanus is a heterothallic zygomycete, one of three species of Phycomyces, the only genus of the family Phycomycetaceae in the order Mucorales (von Arx, 1983). A well-known feature of the genus is the production of very long black sporangiophores which have a greenish metallic sheen. These are often 10 cm and may be up to 50 cm long, and are strongly phototropic. Although P. blakesleeanus is the most frequently studied species in the laboratory, it is the closely related species P. nitens (Agardh) Fr. which seems to be commonly recorded in Britain as occurring on dung, especially the droppings of rats and mice (Ingold, 1965), and other organic refuse.

Two Indonesian agarics described from Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, Mycena rimosacuta Corner, and Mycena rimosacuta var. alba Corner, are now known to be the Australasian species Hygrocybe lewelliniae (Kalchbr.) A. M.Young and Hygrocybe mavis (G.Stev.) E.Horak respectively.

Name of fungi: Aphanoascus, Arthroderma, Auxarthron, Ctenomyces, Gymnoascus (Ascomycota: Onygenales)

Introduction: features of interest

Members of the order Onygenales produce asci within gymnothecia, which consist of a mesh of rigid interlinked hyphae. Highly characteristic appendages are often present; they may be straight or curved and branched or unbranched, and they are an important character for identification of species and genera (Currah, 1985). Despite the striking appearance of the gymnothecial appendages, their ecological role is poorly understood at present. Together with the rigid hyphae of the gymnothecium, they may protect the asci from attack by mites (Summerbell, 2000), and they may also aid dispersal by attaching the gymnothecium to the fur of small mammals. Many Onygenales producing appendages are found in the burrows of animals and feed on their hair (keratin).

This article reviews the current state of knowledge about the evolutionary history of lichenized ascomycetes within an integrated system of all ascomycetes. Substantial progress has been made since molecular techniques were applied to unravel evolutionary relationships. Molecular approaches detect how often the lichen symbiosis arose, test current classification concepts, and find the proper placement for species with uncertain relationships. Uncertainties in some evolutionary hypotheses still need to be resolved by studying further genes. The currently available phylogenetic trees show a number of convergent phenotypic developments in lichenized ascomycetes. The current classification of ascomycetes is reviewed in the light of recent molecular data.