Galerina beatricis, a new species in Agaricales

In 1965 the late Mr. J. Daams, an ardent and acute fungus collector, discovered in a greenhouse at ’s Graveland, the Netherlands, a baffling small agaric with a very dark red-brown pileus, dark brown (sub)decurrent lamellae, a whitish veil partly covering pileus and stipe and a bitter to even acrid taste. The microscopic characters soon revealed that a rather aberrant species of Galerina was involved. In later years this species has been repeatedly found in greenhouses, but also outdoors in orchards, in the same region, always on compost or blackish soil, but after 1971 it has not been recorded again. A recent scanning of the literature on Galerina has shown that none of the nearly 300 species of this genus recognized in the world combines the characters of the present fungus.