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The European Desert Truffles

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Desert Truffles

Part of the book series: Soil Biology ((SOILBIOL,volume 38))

Abstract

In the northern hemisphere, the terfez or ‘desert truffles’ (the genera Mattirolomyces, Terfezia, Tirmania and Picoa) are not the privilege of North African countries, nor of the Middle East and the Arabic Peninsula. There are desert truffles (terfez) in Europe. The country with the largest number of species is Spain and then comes Italy. The most common terfez of commercial interest are Mattirolomyces terfezioides (formerly Terfezia terfezioides) in Hungary and T. arenaria, T. leptoderma and T. olbiensis and T. boudieri and T. claveryi in Spain and Italy. The latter two are more adapted to desert conditions and are not found frequently. Tirmania nivea, still more adapted to the arid zones, is rare (south of Spain, Sicilia). For each species of terfez, geographic distribution and habitat are described. The different factors in the terfez distribution in Europe are analysed (climatic and edaphic conditions, host plants). The commercial interest of some species is discussed.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to M.H. Awameh and A.M. Alsheikh (Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research) for initiating me at the discovery of the terfez in the desert of Kuwait at the end of the 1970s. I also thank very much L. and G. Riousset for letting me discover the French terfez in Provence in the early 1980s and for providing me with plenty of fruiting bodies for my studies. Many thanks too to M. Honrubia for giving me precious indications on the seven new Terfezia species in Spain and to Marie-Anne French for helping me with the translation of the French text to English.

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  1. INRA researcher retired, Résidence Cristelle, 33 rue des Vergers, 63800, Cournon d’Auvergne, France

    Gérard Chevalier

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  1. Gérard Chevalier
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Correspondence to Gérard Chevalier .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Life Sciences Department, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    Varda Kagan-Zur

  2. Life Sciences Department, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    Nurit Roth-Bejerano

  3. Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    Yaron Sitrit

  4. Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Asunción Morte

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Chevalier, G. (2014). The European Desert Truffles. In: Kagan-Zur, V., Roth-Bejerano, N., Sitrit, Y., Morte, A. (eds) Desert Truffles. Soil Biology, vol 38. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40096-4_9

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