The role, diversity and richness of the world of fungi have for centuries been overshadowed by the interest in plants and animals. This commonly underappreciated part of the living world is now being intensively studied, making collections documenting its diversity increasingly important. In the “Mycological Collections”, we present lichens (i.e. lichenized fungi symbiotically associated with autotrophic green algae or cyanobacteria) in addition to organisms traditionally belonging to the fungi group. Also included here are myxomycetes ('slime moulds'), which are actually representatives of the kingdom of protists (unicellular organisms formerly belonging to the protozoa), but for historical reasons are often placed 'near' the fungi in collections.
On the RCIN platform we present only a small selection of Polish mycological collections, which are, however, of high scientific value, especially due to the presence of nomenclatorial types (i.e. specimens on the basis of which new taxa were described).
Poland