A beautifully produced and fairly comprehensive two volume account of European Russula. The Mediterranean species are well covered, but inevitably, the Scandinavian elements are less complete. In any case, the genus is still a work in progress, with more than 30 new taxa recently published for France in a single paper!

Introductory sections cover the macro- and microscopic characters, ecology, systematics and classification. The key to subgenera, sections and subsections (p133) precedes the survey of the taxa. Each section begins with a key, facing a set of small photographs of most of the species. This is followed by the species accounts with one or more good half page colour photographs and large clear line drawings of microscopy (pileocystidial elements and spores).

The text is in Italian, but there are English translations of the preface and the keys, but much of it can be worked out by the non-Italian speaker, especially if you’ve picked up a bit of Latin terminology.

Volume 2 includes a loose page of corrections which comprise