Jacob Elsey (MSc RBG Kew/QMUL 2016-2017)

Co-supervised with Lee Davies

Jacob's project involves a blue fungus collected in Madagascar which was given the informal identification of Entoloma hochstetteri. This fungus more commonly found in New Zealand was a perfect candidate for DNA identification via comparison with specimens from New Zealand. Using ITS sequences it will be compared to data from New Zealand. On top of this primary aim of identifying the specimen, using more specimens from the collection at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a phylogenetic tree will be constructed and the greater question of the species concept and the use of morphology in fungal identification will be discussed.