Quote:
Originally Posted by SheffieldLass  I found an Agrocybe yesterday, and using Funga Nordica and FAN6 keyed it out to Agrocybe dura. I then checked the British Basidiomycota checklist and found there it said A dura was a nomen dubium lacking type material, and that records in Britian were usually misidentified A molesta. FAN6 and FN have A molesta as a synonym of A dura. So is this merely a nomenclature issue or a taxonomic one? And as I used FAN6 and FN for the id, should I use their name, and wait to get my knuckles rapped by the British mycologists?
BTW quite a few of them on the grassy roadside verges right now. And it seems that Yorkshire figures very frequently in the A molesta/A dura records.
Cheers
Melanie |
hi Melanie
as the philosopher and broadcaster C.E.M. Joad famously used to commence almost all his answers on the BBC radio programme
The Brains Trust in the 1940s and 50s: "It all depends on what you mean by . . ."
in this case
Agaricus durus Bolton, which was described and illustrated in James Bolton's
An History of Fungusses growing about Halifax, published in 1788 in - tadah! - Huddersfield
; unfortunately there was no physical material retained by Bolton in this instance, and while, under Article 8.1 of the
ICBN an illustration can represent a type, his description of the "Hard Agaric" and accompanying drawing (plate 67, which I have only seen uncoloured, and which does not really scream "I am a highly distinctive and recognisable toadstool species" at you - though of course it could be the very same fungus we are discussing . . .) are clearly ambiguous enough to have caused confusion
a confused name is clearly not a good idea; over the years, one assumes that on the continent some have felt confident enough to continue the use of the name
Agrocybe dura - others, such as Coutecuisse and Bon, I note, use
molesta
there is no right or wrong answer here - you would be perfectly justified in publishing your find as new and calling it
Agrocybe wykehamsilvensis as long as you published a Latin description and retained a specimen; justified, but of course plain daft and no-one would pay it any attention once its real identity was discovered; I would follow Legon & Henrici in calling it
molesta - there seems little doubt that the two epithets are homotypic
as you know I am currently producing an up-to-date Yorkshire checklist and am following FRDBI and/or Legon & Henrici (they are not always entirely in step with one another
), except when I have strong reasons for not doing so, which I shall explain when I produce the list
fishing in the ocean of creation with the net of words sometimes merely leaves you with a wet net
over and out
Chris
Linear Mode
