Talk:Piptoporus betulinus

To which family does Piptoporus betulinus belong?

Does any expert know to which family P. betulinus belongs? The former entry was Fomitopsidaceae (also said so on :en and :nl), but the article about P. betulinus on :de and :fr say Polyporaceae. Perfect confusion. -- Túrelio 22:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not an expert, but there are various sources where you can look up the taxonomy on the web. I recommend Index Fungorum (see this page), which says Fomitopsidaceae. I think that The Taxonomicon also implies Fomitopsidaceae because if that family is recognized, I suppose Piptoporus will be in it. Marcel Bon "Champignons de France et d'Europe occidentale" (2004), also available in English, puts it in Bjerkanderaceae and puts Fomitopsis in Hymenochaetaceae. I found one which says Polyporaceae - Régis Courtecuisse "Mushrooms of Britain & Europe" (1999), but in his "Guide des champignons de France et d'Europe" (1994), also available in English, he recognizes Fomitopsidaceae. Fomitopsidaceae seems best.

I am sorry to refer a lot to French mycologists, but there is just as much diversity of opinion amongst the others. There are many different systems of classification of fungi and the names are changing at an ever-increasing rate, largely due to new studies which do DNA comparison. This is a very bad problem indeed for the mycology articles of Wikipedia; it is necessary to select names of taxons, but there is no generally accepted system of naming. I don't see any solution except that

• where possible all the alternatives which have recently been used should be mentioned and explained, and
• there should be tolerance for all the recent names, so lists of synonyms/alternatives should be commonplace everywhere.

For me "recent" in mycology means "in the last 30 years or so".

Strobilomyces 22:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention. -- Túrelio 08:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)