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NEW AND INTERESTING FUNGI IN NORTH WALES BRUCEING During the last seven years I have been observing fungi in various parts of Clwyd and Gwynedd. Several interesting species have been found and most of them do not appear to have been recorded from the region before. ASCOMYCETES Leptopodia pezizoides (Afzel. ex Fr.) Boud., was collected during the North Wales Naturalists' Trust foray to the Rhydymwyn end of the Leete valley, Clwyd, in September 1977. It was growing in leaf litter under a mixture of beech and larch. It is similar to the common L. elastica, but differs in size, colour and microscopic details. Otidea grandis (Pers.) Rehm was gathered at Rhydymwyn on the same foray, at the edge of a path in the upper part of the wood. It is a rare member of a difficult genus, of which the yellow O. onotica is the most familiar. This species is larger, and brownish on the outside. It has been found in the woods behind the Lancashire sandhills. Peziza proteana (Boud.) Seaver form sparassoides (Boud.) Korf. This unusual and variable fungus resembles the 'cauliflower fungus', Sparassis, but is, in fact, a much convoluted cup fungus. It was found in soil under beeches in the Hafod Wood Reserve in Erddig Park, near Wrexham, on the NWNT foray in October 1977. Taphrina caerulescens (Mont. & Desm.) Tul. This is one of the leaf-curl and witches-broom fungi which are mostly parasitic on trees. The present species was found on leaves of a North American Black oak, Quercus velutina Lam., growing in the grounds of Plas Tan-y-bwlch, Maentwrog. The fungus induces large blisters of a metallic grey-blue colour on the upperside of the leaf, with the spores of the fungus developing in the hollow of the underside. T. caerulescens is included without comment as a disease of British oaks by Murray (1974.) It is still found in the oakwoods on the west coast of northern Scotland (Henderson, pers. comm., 1977) and was supposed to be common in Scotland in the last century (Henderson, 1954.) BASIDIOMYCETES Uredinales Rust fungi. Chrysomyxa pirolata Wint. This rare rust was found on Pyrola rotundifolia L. spp. maritima (Kenyon) E. F. Warb., at Newborough Warren, Anglesey, in June 1971. It is said to be common on the Southport populations of the wintergreen (Wilson & Henderson, 1966) and increases the known similarities between these two dune systems. The aecidial stage is on Norway spruce but has not been found in Britain. Milesina murariae P. & H. Sydow. This rare rust occurs on Asplenium rutamuraria L. and was found on garden walls of a gift shop by the Oakeley Arms hotel at Tan-y-bwlch, during the meetings of the British Mycological Society in May 1976. 1 have collected further material during 1977 and this