Les Amanites mortelles et l'intoxication phalloidienne

92 Brian Sutton in his review of Martin and Pamela Ellis' earlier volume (Microfungi on Land Plants, 1985) wondered what was left for them to do to continue their 'retirement'. Now we know! They have produced this sequel and complementary book. It is only a third of the size, but that by no means implies any reduction in volume. It is subtitled 'an identification handbook', and covers the microfungi of substrates, other than land plants, which provide interesting or specialised niches - on or with bryophytes; other fungi; myxomycetes; burnt ground and charcoal; soil; dung; and bones, feathers, papers, cloth, etc. Many of these habitats have attracted amateur and professional mycologists alike, who often find it difficult to identify collections with any confidence when the taxonomic and nomenclatural information is dispersed amongst many references, some of which are long out of date. It is good, therefore, to have all fungi expected to be found in a particular environment brought together, keyed out and briefly described. Each section is subdivided to deal with discomycetes, other ascomycetes, hyphomycetes, coelomycetes, phycomycetes and basidiomycetes, but not all groups are represented in each section. Within each subdivision there is a key to the genera included, and the fungi are arranged in alphabetical order. For each genus with more than one species included a key is also provided. The keys are simple and concise, most dependent at each choice on a single diagnostic feature. The descriptions, mostly 2-6 lines long, add to the information contained in the key. Only rarely, however, is information given on the relative frequency of a species. About 730 fungi are described, and over 550 are illustrated by line-drawings. Assuming that the other sections are dealt with in the same thorough way that the dung fungi are treated, then the searcher for a name will be well served, since that section is more comprehensive than either the BMS keys to dung fungi (which are, however, much cheaper!) or Ann Bell's illustrated guide (1983). There are, however, some inconsistencies of treatment. For example, Helvella, Morchella, Aleuria and Peziza, hardly microfungi, are included in the soil section, but the various tinier

agarics which are particularly partial to burnt ground and dung are not mentioned, even by way of explaining their omission in the introduction. Piptocephalis and Syncephalis, obligate parasites on microfungi, are treated in the dung section, since many of their hosts occur on dung, rather than in the fungi -on-fungi section. The reason for this is accepted as practical, but some cross reference might have been helpful. A personal preference would have been for the figures to accompany the text, rather than collected together at the end. These criticisms are, however, minor when set against the potential usefulness of the book. Anybody with an interest in any of the habitats covered should get a copy as soon as possible - they will surely save themselves much time and frustration. M J Richardson Fungal Infection of Plants Eds Pegg, G F & Ayres, P G (1987). Pp428. British Mycological Society Symposium 13. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-32457-2. £45.00 (US$89.50). This detailed volume comprehensively covers a range of aspects on plantfungus interaction. It comprises 20 selected, revised papers taken from symposia held in 1982,1983 and 1984, written by international experts, and fully indexed. A full review will appear shortly in Mycological Research. Les Amanites mortelles et I'intoxication phalloidienne by Lambert, D (1988). Extract from Natura Mosana 41. Pp30, 5 figs. Price BFr120 (incl postage). Societe Botanique de Liege, Department de Botanique B22, Universite de Liege, B4000 Liege, Belgium; postal account (CCP) 000-0624971-970. This booklet describes the three Amanita species, A. phalloides, A. virosa and A. verna, which are responsible for most of the cases of death resulting from mushroom poisoning. It provides details on their chemistry and the principal toxic constituents, together with information on symptomatology and treatment. There is an uptodate, comprehensive bibliography of 125 references.