This autumn, while surveying forest roads under development in the Sikšņi district of the LVM Eastern Vidzeme region, AS “Latvijas valsts meži” (LVM) environmental expert Gaidis Grandāns discovered “Amylocystis lapponica”, a polypore species that is rare in Europe. This is the second recorded site for this species in Latvia, and it has not yet been given a Latvian common name.

The environmental expert suggests that, by analogy with “Climacocystis borealis”, which has been translated into Latvian as “Ziemeļu klimakociste”, the discovered polypore species could be called “Lapzemes amilociste”.

“This is a unique find on a European scale. I encountered this rare polypore species in the forest just a few days after its discovery in the Ķemeri National Park territory, which was recorded as the first observation of the species in Latvia,” says the observant environmental expert Gaidis Grandāns.

The identity of the species was confirmed from photographs by leading Estonian mycologists Asko Lõhmus and Kadri Runnel. A specimen of the species is held at the Latvian Museum of Natural History.