I have been cited in a stamp of the Republic of Mali, published in 1994, showing a well-known, widely distributed edible gilled fungus. I have indeed studied and published on that species. However, the stamp deserves some remarks: (i) I doubt whether the fungus illustrated occurs in the tropical country Mali; however, it does dwell in the mountains of northern Africa (it is well-known that stamps often are published essentially for artistic purpose or for philatelists!), (ii) the generic name for the fungus is incorrectly written: it is "Lepista" that has been meant (and it should have been written in the same font as the specific name), (iii) the rules of nomenclature indicate that the author name "Harmaja" should have been preceded by "(Batsch : Fr.)" (the original authors of this fungus species), (iv) at present I have returned to my original opinion and consider the fungus to belong to the the genus Clitocybe (Fr.) Staude (which generic name is given in the stamp within brackets) instead of Lepista; the correct name of the fungus is thus Clitocybe nebularis (Batsch : Fr.) P.Kumm, and (v) oddly enough, the fungus presented in the Mali stamp is the type of the genus Clitocybe which is "malikka" in Finnish.

Created August 29, 2004.