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Agaricologists beware!
63 habitat". Vinaceous brown? Just add a little more wine to brown-vinaceous! The latter is given both in Rayner's Mycological Colour Chart n(:J 84 on sheet 4 or in Henderson, Orton and Watling's chart in the Flora of British Fungi, but to get to grips with the complexity of colour coding and the hazards of using Ridgeway one should study the introduction to Rayner's chart and the section on colour in the Dictionary of the Fungi. Now will anyone volunteer to give a Munsell/Rayner/ Ridgeway notation for the "sober grey-covered" Transactions colour reported to send the "men from the Ministry" into a cold sweat? M. Noble
AGARICOLOGISTS BEWARE! Early in 1972 a phial full of bean-like objects was submitted to the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, for examination by the Dundee Police Constabulary through Dundee University, Department of Biological Sciences. The material had been taken from a miscreant who had had connections with North Africa whilst employed as a merchant seaman. (The actual data on the man is rather vague). The bean-like objects were obviously confiscated as being possibly drugs, and some form of cannabis had been suggested. They were taken out of the coatpocket of the miscreant and varied in size from between 4.5mm and 9mm (figs IA & IB). On partial imbibition and staining they showed, that although mixed
IA
IB
®
2B
with plant-detritus, the major structures were in fact fungal in origin (fig.2). Certain sections showed internal hymenial palisades but no spores; the hypogeous fungi immediately sprung to mind. A selection of the 'beans' was soaked for forty-eight hours in a dilute ammoniacal solution, a very useful reagent when dealing with dry fungal tissue. Sectioning of the resultant highly inflated material showed its true nature. (fig. 3A-C). So successful was the revival of the material that it could be compared directly with similar dried specimens of recent and known origin which had been treated in the same way. The hymenial tissue was seen to be equipped with chrysocystidia, [cystidia whose contents become golden-yellow after treatment with ammonia] and the pileopellis with filamentous
64
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units many adhering together to form scales. The original material was a group of deformed primordia of a member of the Strophariaceae or Cortinariaceae - probably of the genus Pholiota (figs 4A-F). The mind boggles as to why the miscreant was carrying agaric primordia around in his pocket! When questioned he was not co-operative - perhaps he didn't know, or perhaps he'd purchased some truffles in a North African market, as truffles are thought to be aphrodisiac, and been sold not as truffles but astipitate primordia of an agaric. We will never know. Certainly there is no evidence of a species of Pholiota causing hallucinations and one cannot be charged on such evidence anyway. If they could all those agaricologists with toadstools in their pockets will have to watch out. Roy Watling
65
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AGARICOLOGISTS BEWARE! Early in 1972 a phial full of bean-like objects was submitted to the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, for examination by the Dundee Police Constabulary through Dundee University, Department of Biological Sciences. The material had been taken from a miscreant who had had connections with North Africa whilst employed as a merchant seaman. (The actual data on the man is rather vague). The bean-like objects were obviously confiscated as being possibly drugs, and some form of cannabis had been suggested. They were taken out of the coatpocket of the miscreant and varied in size from between 4.5mm and 9mm (figs IA & IB). On partial imbibition and staining they showed, that although mixed
IA
IB
®
2B
with plant-detritus, the major structures were in fact fungal in origin (fig.2). Certain sections showed internal hymenial palisades but no spores; the hypogeous fungi immediately sprung to mind. A selection of the 'beans' was soaked for forty-eight hours in a dilute ammoniacal solution, a very useful reagent when dealing with dry fungal tissue. Sectioning of the resultant highly inflated material showed its true nature. (fig. 3A-C). So successful was the revival of the material that it could be compared directly with similar dried specimens of recent and known origin which had been treated in the same way. The hymenial tissue was seen to be equipped with chrysocystidia, [cystidia whose contents become golden-yellow after treatment with ammonia] and the pileopellis with filamentous
64
ISmm
.. 3
-........ "
"-
,. \
units many adhering together to form scales. The original material was a group of deformed primordia of a member of the Strophariaceae or Cortinariaceae - probably of the genus Pholiota (figs 4A-F). The mind boggles as to why the miscreant was carrying agaric primordia around in his pocket! When questioned he was not co-operative - perhaps he didn't know, or perhaps he'd purchased some truffles in a North African market, as truffles are thought to be aphrodisiac, and been sold not as truffles but astipitate primordia of an agaric. We will never know. Certainly there is no evidence of a species of Pholiota causing hallucinations and one cannot be charged on such evidence anyway. If they could all those agaricologists with toadstools in their pockets will have to watch out. Roy Watling
65
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