FUNGI, TOADSTOOLS AND RUSTS - MYCOLOGY

Fungi of the Isle of Man

Want to find out about the mushrooms, toadstools, bracket fungi and rusts that grow in the wild places around you? Why not go along to a fungus foray organised by the Isle of Man Fungus Group?

The group has just published a new Checklist of fungus species found on the Island, see below.

Find further information about the Isle of Man Fungus Group here.

Checklist of Fungi of the Isle of Man published in 2023

Over 10 years of effort, recording and identifiying fungus species on the Island has culminated in a 90 page booklet. Published by the Isle of Man Fungus Group with a grant from Culture Vannin, this new checklist provides the most taxonomically up-to-date list of the 1,466 fungus species so far recorded. This is available in hard copy from members of the committee for £10. The booklet explains everything you need to know about using the checklist, fungus recording on the Island and the activities of the group.

The 2023 Checklist is published and also available as a PDF download. We ask that you make a voluntary contribution of at least £5 for this download.

Please SEE HERE to make your contribution for the Checklist PDF.

Download here:

We intend to update this checklist regularly online because we are still finding species new to the island, discovering rarer fungi in new places and finding fungus hotspots. All this feeds into nature conservation on the Island, especially the location of key site and their protection.

Recording

The Isle of Man Fungus Group provides an individual recording sheet and a multiple record sheet as well as advice on what, and how, to collect in order to have an identification confirmed. A detailed description is required to be sent in with your records (not just a photo, although photos are very useful).

Nev Kilkenny confirms the identifications of rare and difficult specimens for us, this is done via Liz Charter. It is often necessary to collect, take spore prints and then dry specimens for identification, but please read the information on the recording sheet or get in touch before collecting specimens. We do not offer guidance on edible species.

See also Nev's supporting notes on cap shapes and gill attachments. Please get in touch with Isle of Man Fungus Group, for advice on recording and identification.

Brief history of fungus recording on the Island

The earliest list of Manx fungi was published in 1909 by J.H. Hartley and J.A. Wheldon in the Lancashire Naturalist. Hartley lived in Ballasalla and worked on the flora. He was joined by Wheldon, a Lancashire botanist and pharmacist at Liverpool gaol, on his holidays. Husband and wife team J.E and D.J Milne worked mainly in the 1970s and 1980s.

Later, Dorothy Milne produced a checklist of all records up to 1988. Tony and Betty Hopson collected many fungus records between 1994 and 1998. Tony also entered all the early records into the Manx Wildlife Trust's database. His wife Betty Hopson continued recording after Tony's death in 1998. There have been occasional visits by groups from the British Mycological Society (BMS). Records from the British Isles databases, CATE2 and the Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI), have been incorporated into our database.