Abstract
Mechanisms involved in post-fire morel fructification remain unclear. A new undescribed belowground vegetative structure of Morchella tomentosa in a burned boreal forest was investigated north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The name “radiscisclerotium” is proposed to define this peculiar and elaborate below-ground vegetative structure of M. tomentosa. Bayesian and maximum parsimony analyses based on ITS rRNA regions and nLSU gene strongly supported a new clade composed of M. tomentosa within the genus Morchella.
This work was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The financial assistance provided by the NSERC is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Dr. M. Kuo for his critical view of the manuscript and the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments concerning the earlier version of this article.