Volume 12, Part 4, November 1998

becoming pale grey or greyish pink, smooth then dis-rupting to become densely silky scaly towards mar-gin, silky smooth at centre. Lamellae free, at firstwhitish then salmon or rose-pink, crowded, withmany lamellulae; edge white, floccose. Stipe 2 - 5 x0.5 - 1 em, slightly wider at base, cylindrical; solid;surface white, tomentose with floccose apex, volvate.Volva white discolouring grey or buff with age, sac-cate, outer surface slightly pubescent. Context up to1 em thick, white, unchanging; hyphae lackingclamp-connexions; odour and taste indistinct. Sporedeposit pale to dark salmon-pink. Spores 5 - 7 x 3 - 4urn, ovoid to ellipsoid, stramineous, smooth, with athickened wall. Basidia 18 - 30 x 6 - 8 [lm, clavate tocylindrical, bearing four sterigmata. Lamella-edgeheteromorphous, with cheilocystidia. Cheilocystidia35 - 70 x 8 - 18 [lm, fusoid, often rostrate at apex,hyaline, thin-walled. Pleurocystidia 45 - 60 x 12 - 32urn, fusoid to slightly clavate, occasionally rostrate.Pileipellis a slightly gelatinized trichodermium ofrepent, inflated hyphae.

Agaricales - Pluteaceae - Volvariella Speg. - StirpsHypopithys.Other remarks: rarely recorded, this white speciesis easily recognized by the habit of growing singlyor gregariously on old basidiomes of the largermembers of Tricholomataceae. It has been illus-trated in Mycologist Vol 10 (1996) p160 and Vol 11(1997) p190, with an illustration on the back cover.See also the following article in this issue, and thenote on p.153. It is possible that the white bloom,found on the surface of Lepista nebularis (Fr.)Harmaja is the mycelium of this species.

ReferencesBoekhout (1990) Fl. Agar. Neerl. 2: 59 - 50, fig. 41; Cooke

295(295); Dancke (1993)1200 Pilze: p l. 443; Konrad &Maublanc (1928) Ie. Bel. Fung. : p l. 17/2; Lange (1927)Fl. Agar. Dan. 2: p I. 68B; Orton (1986) Br. Fung.Fl. 4: 73.

D. N. Pegler & N. W. Legan

Volvariella surrecta - a note on its occurrence in Britain

My interest in Volvariella surrecta (Knapp) Sing.was stimulated in 1994 when Peter Walker, amember of the Huntingdon Fungus Group, dis-covered a growth of this parasitic fungus on alarge fruit body of Clitocybe nebularis (Batsch:Fr.) Kummer on top of a heap of grass mowingsin Gamlingay Wood, Cambridgeshire. The fun-gus records for the county revealed one otherrecord, from Holme Fen NNR in 1965. Althoughthe reserve is visited regularly in the foray sea-son it has not been found there again; nor has itreappeared in Gamlingay Wood.

The literature indicates that V surrecta is arare species and that it can occur on several largespecies of Clitocybe as well as species ofTricholoma. A short note in the BMSNewsletter (February 1996) brought several veryhelpful letters and I have since referred to asmany other sources as I could find, such as florasand foray lists. To my surprise, the BMSDatabase manager informed me that there wasonly one record in the database and it had veryfew details with it.

Volvariella surrecta was described in 1836 byRev. Berkeley and named V loveiana Berk. inhonour of the Rev. R. T. Lowe. It appears underthat name in floras published as late as 1951.The epithet surrecta Knapp has since beenadopted because it predates loveiana by 7 years.No locations are given in these early floras butthere is a detailed description in Cooke (1871)taken from specimens "artificially developed byW. G. Smith from specimens of C. nebularis".An account of the technique appeared in a jour-nal in 1867.

The earliest location I have at present is from

a painting by Carleton Rea of a specimen collect-ed at Kings Lynn in 1903. There is a gap of 60years since when records have been more fre-quent (Table 1) but they are mostly from easternand southern England. There is a single, undat-ed record from Glamis in Scotland.

V surrecta is also rare elsewhere in Europe(Bon, 1987; Courtecuisse & Duhem, 1995), butneither of these sources suggest the reason forits rarity.

At nine of the thirteen sites from whichV surrecta has been recorded in recent years,it has only occurred once; at Warren Wood,Norfolk it has been recorded for two consecutiveseasons and twice within three years atThe Scrubs, Surrey. At the 'Bomb Dump', northof Greenham Common, it has appeared for fivesuccessive seasons, while at a site just outsideRichmond Park, Surrey, it has occurred severaltimes over a period of ten years (see Mycologist11(4) p.190). Although other hosts are given inthe literature, in England C. nebularis is the onlyhost so far recorded and it seems likely that themycelium of the two species coexist. However,the fact that the host is very common and theparasite very rare leads us to the question of theconditions required for the parasite to producefruiting bodies. V surrecta has been found onC. nebularis in a variety of ecosystems (birchwoodland, pine plantations, scrub, roadsidecopses and under brambles) and on a variety ofsoils (sands, gravels, clays and peat) but no clearpicture emerges as to the precise habitat require-ments of this rare agaric.

I thank J. Diserens, Reg Evans, John Keylock,Alick Henrici, Shirley Kirstein, Nick Legon, Prof.

Volume 12, Part 4, November 1998

Table 1 Records of Voluariella surrecta from Britain.

Date26.10.0310.11.6312.10.65pre 196822.10.7600.10.7730.10.7722.11.8405.10.8607.11.8721.11.8729.10.8810.10.9211.10.9211.10.92

00.10.9329.10.9410.11.9422.10.9504.11.9506.11.95

Unknown

LocationKings Lynn, NorfolkBlenheim Park, Oxon.Holme Fen NNR, Cambs.Buckland, Berks.Warren Wood, NorfolkNr Pendomer, SomersetWarren Wood, NorfolkSheer Common, SurreyHam Gate, Richmond Park, SurreyRichmond Park, SurreyHopton Point, NorfolkRichmond Park, SurreyThe Scrubs, Norbury Park, SurreyLong Marston, Warwicks.The Bomb Dump, Greenham

Common, Berks.Great Breach Wood, Soms.Gamlingay Wood, Cambs.The Scrubs, Nr. Mickleham, SurreyRichmond Park, SurreyNorth Park Wood, Totnes, DevonThe Bomb Dump, Greenham

Common, Berks.Glamis, Scotland

Grid ref.

SP4416TL205890SU3498TG0911ST525110TG0911

TG5300

TQ153538SP1647SU504657

ST500312TL241537TQ153538

SX786632SU504657

VC28233122286281717172717173822

6311717322

SourceA. HenriciH. N. SinnotJ. P. HoultonG. A. MacleanR. EvansJ. KeylockR. EvansT. ReynoldsJ. WoodJ. WoodR. EvansJ. WoodT. LaesseeB. BrandJ. N. Diserens

J. KeylockP. WalkerN. LeganJ. WoodJ. WebsterJ. N. Diserens

R. Watling

Webster and Prof. Watling for records and helpfulcomments. I would be pleased to receive anyrecords which I may have overlooked.

ReferencesBon, M. (1987) The Mushrooms and Toadstools of

Britain and North-western Europe. Hodder &Stoughton, London.

Cooke, M. C. (1871) Handbook of British Fungi.Macmillan, London.

Courtecuisse, R. & Duhem, B. (1995) Mushrooms and

Toadstools of Britain & Europe.Harper Collins,London.

Sheila Wells94 High Street. Upwood,

Huntingdon, Cambs. PE17 1QE

Editor's note: The Profile of Voluariella surrecta,and the note on p.153, hoth add further interestto the above article by Sheila Wells.

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