Lentinus squarrosulus Mont., Annales des Sciences Naturelles Botanique 18: 21 (1842)

Facesoffungi number: FoF 3143

Basidiocarps moderate size. Pileus 2–8 cm diam., thin and pliant, convex soon depressed; surface milk white, fuscous brown cream coloured or pinkish-buff, radially innate striate, with concentric zones of small squamules, margin downcurved. Lamellae deeply decurrent, occasionally slightly interveined towards the stipe attachment, white to pale buff, thin, 2–3 mm broad, moderately crowded, 4–5 tiers of lamellulae, edge entire or finely denticulate on large specimens. Stipe 1.5–5 cm × 2–6 mm, central or eccentric, rarely lateral, tapering below, firm, solid, cylindric; surface concolorous with pileus. Context 2–3 mm thick, fleshy coriaceous, white, consisting of a dimitic hyphal system with generative and skeletal hyphae. Generative hyphae 2–6 µm diam., not inflated or scarcely inflated, hyaline, thin walled, frequently branched, with prominent clamp connexions. Skeletal hyphae 2–10 µm diam., with a hyaline, thickened wall, but always with a continuous lumen, and normally branching. Basidiospores 5.5–7.5 × 1.8–2.7 µm [n=40, (6.2 × 2.3 µm), Q = 2.69], straight, cylindrical, hyaline, thin walled with few contents. Basidia 15–21 × 4–6 µm, narrowly clavate, bearing 4 sterigmata. Hyphal pegs abundant.

Habit, habitat and distribution: as a cluster, usually on dead or decaying wood, May to August. Our collection was collected on a decaying wood near Peradeniya Royal Botanic Gardens.

Specimens examined: SRI LANKA, Kandy District, near Peradeniya Royal Botanic Gardens, 13 June 2012, Samantha C. Karunarathna (MFLU 12-1228). GenBank number ITS:KY649464.

Notes: This is the first report of L. squarrosulus with the molecular phylogenetic confirmation from Sri Lanka after Pegler (1983) has previously reported it.

Phylogenetic relationships inferred from maximum parsimony analysis of ITS-rDNA sequences of 36 taxa. The percentages of replicate trees in which the associated taxa clustered together in the bootstrap test (1,000 replicates) are shown next to the branches. The tree is drawn to scale, with branch lengths in the same units as those of the evolutionary distances used to infer the phylogenetic tree. The new Sri Lankan records: Lentinus sajor-caju, having GenBank number KY649463 and herbarium number MFLU 12-1478; Lentinus squarrosulus, having GenBank number KY649464 and herbarium number MFLU 12-1228; Lentinus velutinus, having GenBank number KY649465 and herbarium number MFLU 12-1123 are shown in bold and blue. The topology is rooted with Panus lecomtei. Evolutionary analysis was conducted in PAUP 4.0b 10.

 

Basidiocarps of Lentinus squarrosulus in the field (MFLU 12-1228)

 

Lentinus squarrosulus (MFLU 12-1228) a: Basidia b: Basidiospores c: Skeletal hyphae d: Generative hyphae Scale bars: a = 20 µm, b = 10 µm, c, d = 5 µm