New species of fungus

Oct 15 2007

A species of fungus new to science has been discovered on Imperial's Silwood Park campus, and has been named in the campus' honour.

The new species is a non-edible relative of the famous Penny Bun (or Cep, Boletus edulis) commonly used in French cuisine.

The new species was found growing in a Poplar grove behind the William Penney halls of residence at Silwood Park by Alan Hills, a leading expert on boletes - the name of this type of fungi. The new finding was described in the journal Mycological Research by Alan Hills and his colleagues, in which they named the fungus Xerocomus silwoodensis. This is the latest addition to the European Xerocomus subtomentosus group of fungi which are known as the Suede Boletes for their velvety textured, rusty-coloured to pale sepia tinted caps, lemon-chrome tubes and yellow stems that sport a network of brick-red veins.

Professor Mick Crawley from Imperial's Department of Life Sciences manages the natural habitats of the Silwood Park estate. He explained the significance of the discovery: "I suspect that it is unique for a new species to be named after a university campus, and I'm delighted that Silwood Park has been granted this honour. The 100 hectare estate was formerly part of the historic Royal hunting forest of Windsor Great Park, and currently provides an outstanding range of terrestrial and wetland habitats that are used for teaching and research on a wide range of ecological questions. It is entirely fitting that a campus dedicated to the study of biodiversity should have a new species named in its honour".

Silwood Park has a long association with research into fungi, and Honorary Lecturer - and renowned fungi expert - Ted Green MBE, has collected species at Silwood and in neighbouring Windsor Great Park since the 1960s.

The campus is located 25 miles west of central London, near the village of Sunninghill in Berkshire. Acquired by Imperial in the 1940s, the campus site is the base for over 90 postgraduate students studying a range of degrees in crop protection, ecology, evolution, conservation and other ecological subjects. The site is also provides laboratory, field-laboratory and office space for a large number of academic researchers and professors from the Divison of Biology and the College's NERC Centre for Population Biology.