New work on Boletus
Recently the Sicilian mycologist Nicola Amalfi kindly sent me a book that he published some time ago and this is exactly what I want to present to the readers of the site now.
This is a very handy book that covers all the Sicialian species of the genus Boletus, which also means most of the European species, a thing that makes the book very suitable to use in any other country.
The book has a short introduction that gives basic information about the genus and its placement in the system of fungi. The species are arranged under the traditional sections as defined by Lannoy & Estadès in their “Les bolets”. – Edules, Appendiculati, Fragrantes, Luridi and Calopodes, all of them nicely presented with overview of their essential characters. An interesting exception is the addition of section Erythropodes for the Luridi, lacking network of the stipe. What concerns the sections, I would allow myself to make a notice that the use of the name “Edules” for this section of Boletus is no longer supported as the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature requires that mycologists use “section Boletus” as it contains the type species of the genus – Boletus edulis Bull. : Fr.
Further on, the book features brief but informative description of the species, comments on the ecology and the phenology, as well as information on infraspecific taxa where they exist. Reader gets especially interested and very surprised when reads that B. satanas, which is certainly poisonous, is in fact known as edible mushroom in parts of Sicily, which is as far as I know, the first written evidence for the edibility of this species. Finally, all the presented boletes are illustrated by original drawings.
Here is the list of the species included:
Section Boletus (as Edules) – B. edulis, B. pinophilus, B. aestivalis (= B. reticulatus), B. aereus;
Section Appendiculati – B. appendiculatus, B. regius, B. pseudoregius, B. fechtneri, B. subappendiculatus;
Section Fragrantes – B. fragrans, B. emilii (= B. spretus), B. impolitus, B. depilatus;
Section Luridi – B. luridus, B. poikilochromus, B. xanthocyaneus, B. torosus, B. satanas, B. pulchrotinctus, B. comptus, B. permagnificus, B. rhodoxanthus, B. rubrosaguineus, B. rhodopurpureus;
Section Erythropodes – B. erythropus, B. dupainii, B. lupinus, B. queletii;
Section Calopodes – B. calopus, B. radicans.
“Il genere Boletus” is a handy book that will be a useful companion for people with passion on boletes. I have one suggestion to add. I am sure that I will see second edition of this nice book and I will be very happy if the original illustrations are complemented with some photographs.
For more information the reader might contact Nicola Amalfi personally by e-mail.
Bibliographic information:
Amalfi,N. 2008. Il Genere Boletus. Guida pratica sul genere Boletus con sezioni e spezie. Andrea Lippolis, Messina.
