Lycogala heterospora S. Y. Wang, X. Y. Yang, B. Zhang & Y. Li, 2023

Yang, Xin-Ya, Wang, Sai-Yu, Dai, Dan, Zhao, Hui-Nan, Wang, Yang, Li, Xue-Fei, Zhang, Bo & Li, Yu, 2023, A new species of Lycogala, and a new record of Lindbladia from China, Phytotaxa 632 (2), pp. 143-153 : 146

Lycogala heterospora S. Y. Wang, X. Y. Yang, B. Zhang & Y. Li , sp. nov. FIGURE 2 .

Mycobank No.: 848859

GenBank Acc. No.: OQ971863 (Partial sequence of SSU rRNA gene).

Typification: CHINA. Heilongjiang Province: Shuanghe National Nature Reserve, on the surface of the bark of a dead wood, 12 July 2019, collected by Saiyu Wang (Holotype, HMJAU M10070! ).

Diagnosis: The species is similar to L. epidendrum in the sporocarp shapes, but differs in the peridial vesicles, densely and evenly distributed, solitary, rounded, and yellowish-brown.

Etymology: The epithet “ heterospora ”, refers to the different sizes of spores.

Description: Sporocarps solitary or in small loose groups, spherical to short horizontally ovoid, regular in shape, 3.5–5.5 mm diam. Peridium membranous, greyish-orange, brownish-orange, covered by vesicles. Peridial vesicles 50–200 μm, in stereomicroscope, look like dried droplets, yellowish-brown, mainly solitary, densely and evenly distributed, distant from each other on ½–1 their diameter, in light microscope solitary, ovoid, light brown. Vesicle walls almost hyaline. Oil droplets absent. Capillitium tubular, 6–15 μm diam, with wavy contours, ornamented by regular bracelet-like thickenings. Spores mass yellowish-gray. Spores vary in size, smaller spores (4.5–)5.0–6.0(–6.5) μm, larger spores (7–)8.0–10.0(–14) μm in diameter, hyaline to pale yellow, marked with a faint reticulation of warts. Immature fructifications unknown.

Habitat and distribution: On the surface of the bark of a dead wood, currently known only from the type locality, Shuanghe National Natural Reserve in Heilongjiang Province, China.

Notes: The new species L. heterospora is morphologically similar to L. epidendrum . They have similar sizes and shapes of sporocarps. The peridium is covered with yellowish-brown simple vesicles and it distinguishes this species from the similar L. epidendrum and L. irregulare . The most important characteristic of this species is the spores of varying sizes, smaller spores (4.5–)5.0–6.0(–6.5) μm, larger in diameter (7–)8.0–10.0(–14) μm. For species of the genus Lycogala , spore size is generally in the range of (4.7–)5.5–6.3(–9.5). The spore size difference in one species is less than 4 μm ( TABLE 1 ).

Figures

FIGURE 2. Habitat and microstructure of L. heterospora (Holotype, HMJAU M10070!) A-C. Fruiting body. D. Peridium. E–F. Peridial vesicles. G. Capillitium. H. Spores. Scale bars: 5 mm (A); 2 mm (B); 1 mm (C); 100 μm (D, E); 50 μm (F); 10 μm (G, H).