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04-11-2004, 07:18 PM

The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

| Fortunately, A. phalloides is uncommon.

Not as much as all that. When I lived in Wiltshire, I found it
fairly often. For comparison, I have ONCE seen a giant puffball.
I agree that it is probably only locally fairly common.

My experience is the opposite - I sometimes have to give away, cook and
freeze (or preserve in oil) giant puffballs because I have so many.

I've only seen A. phalloides a couple of times. (In fact, I've seen
Volvariella surrecta more often, and when I sent a specimen to the
British Museum they were over the moon - no-one there had seen a fresh
specimen... Ted Ellis, OTOH, knew where there were several more clones
in Norfolk alone.)

BTW, part of e-mail from Kew:

--------======== Quote ========--------

The botanist who identified it said it
was an interesting Solanum that he had not come across before. It is
Solanum villosum subsp. miniatum according to Stace's New Flora of
the British Isles or Solanum luteum subsp. alatum according to Flora
Europaea. They are synonyms and the common name is red or hairy
nightshade. The main species was introduced from southern Europe
either via wool, bird seed or oilseed. Another subspecies was
introduced in the Nottingham area for pharmaceutical use (possibly by
Boots). The berries are yellow orange or red. It is an infrequent casual
in southern England. I have kept the plant alive to ripen some of the
berries to grow on next year.

Thank you for making the enquiry - we've all learnt something from it!

--------======== Unquote ========--------

Next year I shall be trying to cross it with garden huckleberries - I
tried some of the berries and they were more pleasant than S. nigrum,
and then the rest of the pulp from the ripe berried of two plants and
suffered no ill-effects.

I have a dessertspoon-or-so of seeds. Golden Huckleberries ahoy! (After
careful testing, innit.)

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

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