As reported by various media, the Science department of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, underwent drastic changes towards the end of 2014. The staff of Mycology has now been split into three independent sections. The Fungarium is now a part of ‘Collections’, and has a new manager from a non-mycological background. Another section called ‘Identification and Naming’ is led by Paul Cannon, and includes Martyn Ainsworth as the Fungal Research Team Leader. Begona Aguirre-Hudson is the Assistant Curator and reports to Martyn. Bryn Dentinger will oversee the ‘Comparative Fungal Biology’ team. building bryn Previous Mycology building which was demolished in 2006 Brian Spooner (retired, Chair SFSG), David Pegler (retired), Paul Cannon (ID and Naming, 2014), Bryn Dentinger (CFB, 2014) A new project by Kew, ‘Lost and Found Fungi’, launched in the summer 2014, aims to survey a selection of species from Great Britain and Northern Ireland with restricted historical distributions. Funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the project is led by Paul Cannon and Martyn Ainsworth. The project aims (online, BMS web page) “to establish whether they (the fungi, the subjects) are genuinely rare or only apparently so due to lack of recording effort in the past. They will include species that have not (or rarely) been found during the past 50 years, newly discovered species that may be recent immigrants or historically overlooked, species that are the subject of conservation management and action plans, and those of particular interest on a local scale.” Kew is to engage two officers who assist the project team. Martyn card Martyn Ainsworth sampling live tissue of a Paxillus using a ‘Plant Card’ … which is designed to retain DNA viable for analysis for an ‘indefinite’ period