The web site of the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum in Berlin-Dahlem contains information for a general public: a survey of the gardens, opening hours, calendar of activities. Other items of more professional interest are, e.g., a survey of research activities, personal pages of the staff members with publication lists, a list of genus names in current use, a database of Dermateaceae (Fungi), the text of the recent issue of the International Code for Botanical Nomenclature. (H. J. M. Sipman) - http://www.bgbm.org/BGBM/default.htm.

Methodology for volunteer/school monitoring projects using lichens - This site is for teachers and students. It provides a basic description of lichens with numerous links to other web sites that give more information on particular topics. It lists monitoring studies completed by schoolchildren in North America and a copy of a draft protocol successfully used by 'Airnet', a consortium of schools. This is organized through the Harris Center for Conservation in New Hampshire and uses several techniques to monitor environmental quality. Any suggestions for cross links or improvements are welcome. (D.Richardson) - http://www.cciw.ca/eman-temp/research/protocols/lichen/.

Lichen research at the University of Maine at Fort Kent - An introduction to the lichen research program at the University of Maine at Fort Kent (U.S.A.), which focuses on the lichen Order Caliciales and the use of lichens in assessing ecological continuity in the forests of northern New England and Maritime Canada. The site includes several research reports, with extensive bibliographies of lichen literature, a photo gallery of Caliciales found in the region, information on the lichen herbarium and database management program, and a syllabus, with supporting materials, describing our field course in lichenology. (S. Selva) - http://academic.umfk.maine.edu/lichens/main.htm.

Lichen Herbarium, M.R.D. Seaward, University of Bradford - The private herbaria of M.R.D. Seaward, currently housed in the University of Bradford are being re-catalogued in order to access details of their content onto the web. His lichen collection (12,250 specimens) has already been updated in terms of the collectors (locations, dates and approximate size of collections), geographical scope and taxonomic scope (generic level). (M.R.D. Seaward) - http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/envsci/herbarium.htm.

North American Lichen Project - This new web site has basic introductory pages for the general public on lichen biology, lichens and people, lichens and animals, and lichens and the environment. It has a sampler of pictures to introduce the variety of forms and colours in lichens and a gallery of about 100 lichen portraits. It has a page on the upcoming book Lichens of North America and a page about sponsorship of the project, grant support, and acknowledgements of the many people who have helped it along. For people with deeper interests, it has a paper on wildlife use of lichens in North America by Steve Sharnoff and R. Rosentreter and a quick review of lichens and invertebrates by Steve. It also has a database on human use of lichens, sorted by taxon and by type of use, compiled by Sylvia Sharnoff. (S. & S. Sharnoff) - http://www.lichen.com.

Department of General Botany of the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany - This web page presents an introduction into all fields of the working group, such as systematics, phylogeny and taxonomy of green algae, cyanobacteria, fungi (esp. ascomycetes) and lichens, ecology and physiological ecology, tropical ecology, plant-animal-interactions (herbivory), canopy of tropical and temperate forests. A list of all staff members (including phone-numbers, email- and mailing-addresses) and their current projects as well as general introductions into the subjects (with lots of photos) are available. In addition, there is an overview of courses, a short summary of applied methods and techniques and a big list of links to corresponding WWW pages. The pages are available in English and German. (F. Kauff) - http://www.uni-kl.de/FB-Biologie/AG-Buedel/AG-Buedel.html.

Caloplaca on the Web - Cliff Wetmore has added a new feature to his web page: under the Caloplaca data section a new choice has been added that will lead to a list of all Caloplaca names with authorities, most of which were verified. There are 26 pages of names but one can select the first letter of a species that one wants to go to; links to other pages are at the bottom of each page. (C. Wetmore) - http://www.tc.umn. edu/~wetmore.

Checklist of North American Lichens - An updated version of the online cumulative checklist of North American lichens was posted on February, 17, 1998. The URL differs slightly from the first version, only by having a different file extension (.htm instead of .html). (Th. Esslinger) - http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/esslinge/ chcklst/chcklst7.htm.

British Lichen Society - The British Lichen Society web site has been updated. More comprehensive links have been provided. Tom Chester's The Churchyard Lichens Fact Sheet (a source of much useful information, particularly to beginners) is reproduced in full. Descriptions and prices are given of B.L.S. ties, clothing, mugs, waterproof notebooks and hand lenses. Details are given of all this year's lichenological field meetings and workshops. The full key to U.K. Parmelias is given at http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/jmgray/cd/key.htm or via the 'Publications' or 'Parmelia CD' page. (J.M. Gray) - http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/jmgray/.

Bryologisch-lichenologische Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Mitteleuropa (BLAM) - BLAM has been on Internet since the beginning of 1998 in order to advertise the association and to facilitate the exchange of information among members and international bryologists and lichenologists. The entry is divided into three main parts: 1) general information including a site map, 2) details regarding membership, events organized by the association and publications of BLAM-members (more space will be given to the latter in the future), and 3) a part intended to make available information about our discipline, providing help for classification and distributional data in Central Europe (at the moment in German only). (U. Schwarz) - http://www.uni-hohenheim.de/ ~schwarzu/blam/index.html.

Mediterranean lichens on-line - Lichenological activities of the OPTIMA Commission for Lichens towards a checklist of lichens for the Mediterranean area are flourishing and, by the end of the year, checklists will be available for many more operational geographic units. The existing checklists are being updated, and current versions are available on the WWW as plain text documents. Information on five countries is now databased (Israel, Italy, Morocco, Slovenia, and Turkey), and their floristic tables can be accessed via the WWW. It is now possible to retrieve the joint occurrence of a species in different countries. We are currently working on a taxonomic thesaurus which will aid to uniformize different taxonomic concepts, and on procedures for comparing lichen floras of different geographic units. (M. Grube & P.L. Nimis) - http://bkfug.kfunigraz.ac.at/ ~grubem/medlich.htmlx.