Do you want to become famous?
Then name a mushroom after yourself. There is an estimate that there are from 30,000 to 50,000 species of fleshy mushrooms in North America. Only about 10,000 have been studied, described, named and recorded. So you have 67-80% of the mushrooms that are waiting to be discovered and named. I finally found a person that that told me how this can be done. He writes:
"Anyone can name a new mushroom. Basically, a new name just has to be *validly* and *effectively* published; "validly" means that the new name has to follow certain rules, for instance containing a description of the new species in Latin; "effectively" means that this has to be done in a publication that's generally available and widely read, not (for instance) your mushroom club newsletter."
This is an example of a mushroomer that is giving information half heartedly. "description of the new species in Latin" does not ring true. He does not give examples of publications that would be acceptable nor your chances of getting your discovery published. I am not sure how responsive these publications would be to someone unknown in the mycological field. I wrote again and asked him for examples of publications that are acceptable for this sort of thing. His answer:
yes, unfortunately, the description for a new species doesn't have to be written *entirely* in Latin, but it *does* have to include a short description written in Latin. This Latin description is really a "diagnosis" - - it just contains enough information to let people identify the mushroom; it doesn't have to be a "full" description. The full description generally gets done in the native language of the author.
The standard publications in America for naming new species are Mycologia (published by the Mycological Society of America) and Mycotaxon (an independent publication). There are others, of course, in any country you can name - - the standard professional journals for mycology in that country. Referring a new species to your nearest research institution is a good bet - - but if they don't have anyone there who specializes in that group of fungi, they may take years to get to it, just store it away without ever identifying it, or (this has happened to me) just throw it out. It's tough out there...
A processes that I believe would have a better chance of succeeding would be to bring in the specimen to a University that has a botany or mycology department and hope they will give you credit and name it after you. That way they do all the work and you get the credit :o) This is the way Chuck Barrows wound up with a bolete named after him - Boletus barrowsii. Read all about it on this Tom Volk's page.
Before you attempt this, I hope you get some years of experience so as not to submit a mushroom that has been documented a long time ago and make a fool of yourself. I personally, do not have desire to go down in history, I just want to find a few tasty mushrooms.
