Bolbitius titubans

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Heino - even when I check on the records of the many synonyms of Bolbitius titubans, It doesn't seem to have been recorded before in the ACT or NSW does this sound believable to you?

Michael - It's not believable, it's not correct and I reckon you've just seen a major flaw in ALA. I'll explain my understanding of what happens. Do a search for just Bolbitius, NOT via ALA but in AVH (http://avh.chah.org.au/). On the left of the screen you will see a heading Taxon and (once you've expanded that) you'll see and 'Taxon name (processed)' and 'Taxon name (provided)'. Click on 'choose more' in 'Taxon name (provided)'. When I did that a few minutes ago I found several entries for Bolbitius titubans (with different combinations of authors after the species name). This box tells you that there are 23 Australian herbarium records with Bolbitius titubans (and another 19 with B. vitellinus). Now, close that box and click 'choose more' in 'Taxon name (processed)' . Now all you see is a count of 11 records for B. titubans. In going from (provided) to (processed) the entries on the various herbarium databases have gone though a filtering process, where the initially databased name is matched against a master list. The trouble is that the master list can't make sense of some author combinations (nor, clearly, of vitellinus), throws a wobbly and drops all information except just the genus name when it outputs the (processed) name. It is the (processed) name that ALA sees. I have found quite a few examples of this problem with both fungi and lichens. ALA is aware of it and I have been told that it should be fixed this year. For now I treat fungal/lichen information on ALA with great wariness. I have 3 ACT collections in the herbarium (from Macquarie, ANU grounds, Haig Park) which I identified as Bolbitius titubans in Sept 1913 and they were updated on the herbarium database soon after. You can actually find that out, but as you've seen it's not straightforward!

Thanks Heino much appreciated