Why one should sometimes keep specimens

[Chris Yeates]

As has been discussed before on several threads it would be very useful if we had a Help Setting up a Fungus Herbarium sticky. Even if one doesn't have a microscope at the moment, you might be thinking of making the move at some time and properly dried material will be keep virtually all the diagnostic characters intact for future examination. It can also be useful for times when there is a "glut" and you have no time to process everything.
It is of paramount importance that each collection be given a unique number (some people do this for everything they process whether material is retained or not). Digital photography means that it is relatively easy to capture the macro appearance of the fungus in question and notes re: smell, texture, colour changes etc. should all be cross-referenced to that number.

Anyway that is rather beside the point, I just want to give an example of when the keeping of such a specimen has paid off. I have been working my way through some old unidentified collections. This particular packet:

contained a short (2cm max) length of Lamium album stem on which were ten or so pale discomycetes, which from the literature available to me at the time (in 1986!) I was unable to name. I made notes based on the fresh material; these would have been somewhat different if done today (for example I would have noted things like the lipid content of the living spores).
Returning many years later to this collection I made a couple of squash preparations, one first in water (with Ammoniacal Congo Red added later), and then one in Lugol's Iodine (IKI). As noted at the original time I saw no blueing of the ascus tips in IKI and only the faintest, not really convincing, hint of reddening as you might expect with a hemiamyloid reaction.
Using more literature than I could have dreamed of over a quarter of a century ago I arrived at the genus Hyalopeziza and the closest match seemed to be Hyalopeziza raripila. At this point I "went public" on ASCOFrance with my tentative suggestion; Hans-Otto Baral (world expert on all things inoperculate) kindly responded, both on the website and by email, and I am happy with my suggestion.

Ironically this was collected two years before Seppo Huhtinen redisposed it in Hyalopeziza. It is no wonder that I was unable to track it down at the time of collection as it was nearly twenty years before it was added to the British list - these appear to be the only other British records:

British Fungi - record details

here are some images of this tiny fungus










more can be found on the ASCOFrance website Hyalopeziza? - Forum ASCOFrance (as can drawings from one of Batten's 2005 records, kindly added by Zotto). The Internet can be a real boon at times! As can be seen Batten recorded it on Ulmus leaves; the type collection was on a species of tree mallow Lavatera thuringiaca - so my finding of it on white dead-nettle proves it to be a highly plurivorous species; other Hyalopeziza species have more restricted substrate requirements.

Cheers

Chris

[Chris Yeates]

I have contacted Mariko Parslow at Kew to check whether there are any other records of Hyalopeziza raripila (other than Ted Batten's two listed on FRDBI) she knows of

she has kindly replied: "There is no other GB collection of Hyalopeziza raripila (Höhn.) Huhtinen, per se.
However, there are three collections of 2 very similar taxa (or ?3 taxa) on leaves of various other plants (2 on Brassica, one on Rubus), sub Hyalopeziza (cf.) raripila. They do not appear in FRDBI and, whether they are the same species or not is not known. Anyway, they have not been recorded as H. raripila."

cheers

Chris

[mollisia]

Hello Chris,

so you made them send you the three cf.-specimens for revison?

best regards,
Andreas

[mollisia]

Hello Chris,

what I don't understand is, that you noted a negative ascus reaction on your label. The microfotos clearly show a quite strong blue reaction.
If you have not noticed that reaction in your first examination, this can have two reasons in my opinion:
1. The Lugols solution you used in that times was to weak - or it was Melzers which nearly supresses a reaction sometimes
2. You had fresh materila with only living, fully turgescent asci. Then the ascus pore can be so tiny, that one doesn't recognize it.

So for those who like those fungi two things are interesting:
1. Please use Lugols or (even better) Barals solution for the ascus porus reaction - never Melzers
2. To be sure of the reaction, it is best to regard dead asci, because the enlarging of the ascus top in dead state enlarges also the apical pore - which then is stretched 3 or 4 times as high as in living state.

best regards,
Andreas

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by mollisia

Hello Chris,

what I don't understand is, that you noted a negative ascus reaction on your label. The microfotos clearly show a quite strong blue reaction.
If you have not noticed that reaction in your first examination, this can have two reasons in my opinion:
1. The Lugols solution you used in that times was to weak - or it was Melzers which nearly supresses a reaction sometimes
2. You had fresh materila with only living, fully turgescent asci. Then the ascus pore can be so tiny, that one doesn't recognize it.

So for those who like those fungi two things are interesting:
1. Please use Lugols or (even better) Barals solution for the ascus porus reaction - never Melzers
2. To be sure of the reaction, it is best to regard dead asci, because the enlarging of the ascus top in dead state enlarges also the apical pore - which then is stretched 3 or 4 times as high as in living state.

best regards,
Andreas

You are spot on Andreas - I would have been using Melzer's at that time (as was everyone in this country); I think that we only really switched to Lugol when getting access to chloral hydrate became a problem, rather than through the now-understood advantages of IKI; I suspect also that many in this country have not yet picked up on hemi-amyloidity even . . . . clearly after KOH pre-treatment there is now a clear reaction as can be seen in the images now

it is also possible that I missed a slight reaction in the fresh asci (I didn't have quite as good a microscope back in 1986 either)

this all backs up my original point about keeping material

best wishes

Chris

[hillrover]

Has anyone any advice on the best method of drying specimens for keeping?

Christine

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by hillrover

Has anyone any advice on the best method of drying specimens for keeping?

Christine

That's a good question - I think there are moves afoot to put together a sticky about preserving specimens and the like - watch these pages!

Chris

[hillrover]

That was fast out of the blocks, Chris.

I will "watch this space"

Thanks

Christine

[mollisia]

Hello Chris,

yes, I fully agree that it is important to keep material.
And I would also say, it is important to keep also common and easily determinable species in herbaria. Or you sometimes have the problem, that you want to compare some rare and critical species to a common one - but you have never preserved one. When I was working (voluntarily) in the museum in Stuttgart (STU), I once made a list of Russula species missing in the herbarium. We had no R. ochroleuca, no R. mustelina, no Russula turci, .....

So please, when you come across reprensentative collections, make a herbarium specimen even from the common species. Some day you will be glad to have it

best regards,
Andreas

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

You are spot on Andreas - I would have been using Melzer's at that time (as was everyone in this country); I think that we only really switched to Lugol when getting access to chloral hydrate became a problem, rather than through the now-understood advantages of IKI; I suspect also that many in this country have not yet picked up on hemi-amyloidity even . . . . clearly after KOH pre-treatment there is now a clear reaction as can be seen in the images now

it is also possible that I missed a slight reaction in the fresh asci (I didn't have quite as good a microscope back in 1986 either)

this all backs up my original point about keeping material

best wishes

Chris

[auryoningu]

So please, when you come across reprensentative collections, make a herbarium specimen even from the common species. Some day you will be glad to have it

maybe !