Rhodocybe paurii, a new species from the Indian Himalaya

Abstract

A new species of Entolomataceae, Rhodocybe paurii, is described from Garhwal in the western Indian Himalaya. This species grows on wood in dense clusters and belongs to section Claudopodes Singer ex Baroni because of its pleurotoid habit and lack of hymenial pseudocystidia. It is distinguished from the other pleurotoid species in that section by its layered caespitose habit, a brown spore deposit and a tomentose pileus surface composed of a well-developed layer of hyaline, erect, filamentous hyphae. Phylogenetic analysis using nucleotide sequence data from the nuclear large ribosomal subunit gene indicates a close relationship between R. paurii and the type species of the genus, Rhodocybe caelata. This analysis also suggests a possible paraphyly of the genus Rhodocybe and supports monophyly of Entoloma sensu lato.

• Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo
• Entolomataceae
• Garhwal
• large ribosomal subunit
• maximum likelihood
• phylogeny
• pleurotoid
• Uttaranchal

Fieldwork in the Indian Himalaya was made possible by the International Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant INT-9902175) and the Department of Science & Technology of India. Much of the background work, which has allowed recognition of this new species by T. J. Baroni, is due in part to support from an NSF Biotic Surveys & Inventories Grant (DEB-95-25902) for biodiversity studies of tropical Basidiomycetes. Ms Patricia Eckel, Buffalo Museum of Science, kindly prepared the Latin diagnosis.