Splitters and Lumpers

My copy of the latest Field Mycology journal arrived today. Very exciting, as some of the Fungi experts from Kew had done some work on DNA sequencing some specimens of Entoloma fungi which showed that what was believed to be one species has turned out to be several. Although the science involved is way over my head, some specimens which I collected were used, and some of my photos appeared in the article. I’d already been sent a PDF of the article by one of the Kew guys, and seen it online, but seeing it in hard copy in a journal was much more exciting. Of course, thanks to DNA sequencing, this splitting is happening more frequently in all areas. It doesn’t seem that long ago that a number of species were lumped together under the name Entoloma.