Diversity and taxonomy of Tricholoma species from Yunnan, China, and notes on species from Europe and North America

ABSTRACT

Although taxonomic knowledge on Tricholoma (Agaricales, Basidiomycota) is fairly comprehensive in northwest Europe, knowledge of the global diversity and distribution of Tricholoma spp. is still sparse. In this study, the diversity and distribution of some Tricholoma spp. are analyzed by morphological and molecular methods based on 70 collections from Yunnan, China, 45 from central Europe, 32 from Colorado, USA, 9 from Japan, and 3 from Ukraine. A Holarctic distribution is suggested for several species, based on collections and nuc rDNA internal transcribed spacer ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 (ITS) sequences. Six species new to science are formally described from Yunnan: five in existing sections, Tricholoma forteflavescens, T. olivaceoluteolum, T. melleum, T. olivaceum, and T. sinoportentosum, and one, T. muscarioides, in the newly described section Muscaria alongside several previously described species. Additional putatively new species cannot be formally described because they lack sufficient material. Tricholoma foliicola is recognized as a species of the genus Gerhardtia.

KEYWORDS:

• Agaricales
• biogeography
• distribution
• Gerhardtia
• Holarctic
• phylogeny
• Tibet
• Tricholomataceae
• 7 new taxa

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi, Denver Botanic Gardens (DBG), and the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo (TNS), for loans of herbarium specimens. Morten Christensen and Jacob Heilmann-Clausen kindly provided at that time unpublished ITS sequences and valuable comments. Jerry Cooper provided unpublished sequence data for comparison and important information on New Zealand Tricholoma species. Karl-Heinz Rexer is thanked for comments, advice, and help with loan requests. Zai-Wei Ge, Mitko Karadelev, Karin Pätzold, Matthias Theiß, and Qi Zhao provided Tricholoma collections to the involved herbaria, which is highly appreciated. Meike Piepenbring is thanked for numerous valuable comments on a preliminary version of the manuscript. Members working at the Ailao Shan Station for Subtropical Forest Ecosystem Research Studies, Yunnan, are acknowledged for their kind support. Björn Sandrock is thanked for help with molecular cloning. Various comments of J. Heilmann-Clausen and Clark Ovrebo considerably improved the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

ZLY’s participation was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31770032).