Book review

This is the first part of a series which looks very promising. It gives profiles of 50 species of Cortinarius occurring in Italy, in alphabetical order, preceded by 64 pages of introductory chapters. Successively a preface of Bidaud is included, an introduction to the series, an account of the used taxonomical system and a comparison between the ‘Cortinarius Flora photographica’ of Brandrud et al. and the ‘Atlas des Cortinaires’ of Bidaud et al. (9 pages), a list of references (7 pages), and an elaborate chapter on the secondary metabolites of species of Cortinarius and their toxicity (35 pages). Each of the 50 species in this first part covers 4 pages, providing the place of publication, details on the type, synonymy, the original diagnosis, a translation of this in Italian, explanatory notes on the etymology, a description based on the material studied including the citation of this material, and taxonomical notes. Two coloured photographs of the fruit-bodies are included, which are always of very good quality. However, the second photograph does not always give additional information. Furthermore, a photograph of the spores and mostly the basidia as observed with SEM is given, a line-drawing of 6 spores showing their ornamentation and a distribution map of the species concerned in Italy. Although the majority of the SEM-photographs is of good quality and very informative, some are blurred, which is a pity and could have been avoided maybe. The sporograms are very informative and of very good quality.