Karstenia 51: 23–30, 2011 Russula pyriodora, a new fragrant species described from Finland. JUHANI RUOTSALAINEN and SEPPO HUHTINEN RUOTSALAINEN, J. & HUHTINEN, S. 2011: Russula pyriodora, a new fragrant spe cies described from Finland. – Karstenia 51: 23–30. Helsinki. ISSN 04533402. A new species, Russula pyriodora, is described based on Finnish material. It is char acterized by an appearance of R. betularum, but has a distinctive odour of pears. Other differentiating features, both macroscopical and microscopical, are also discussed. The new species is also compared with the type of R. alborosea, which is a likely synonym of R. mairei. Key words: Russulaceae, Russula, Atropurpurea, Russula pyriodora, Finland, taxonomy Juhani Ruotsalainen, Metsätie 12 A 4, FI–71310 Vehmersalmi, Finland; e-mail: juhani.
[email protected] Seppo Huhtinen, Herbarium, University of Turku, FI–20014 Turku, Finland; e-mail:
[email protected] Introduction typification by Kärcher (1996) is based on two fruitbodies which are not conspecific. Selection New taxa of the genus Russula Pers. are en of a type without actually carefully studying ma countered in Finland every year. In most cases terial is never advisable. For example, descrip these new finds consist of only a few fruitbodies. tions like those by Romagnesi based on “clear” Furthermore, it is often very laborious to find a type specimens, are of questionable value when second collection, even from the existing, plen it is realized that those “clear” type collections tiful collections. Consequently, during the past are mixtures of more than one taxon, e.g. R. decades the senior author has refrained from amoenoides Romagn.