Musumecia Vizzini & Contu
The genus Musumecia is a small genus in the so called Tricholomatoid clade (Matheny et al. 2006; Sánchez-García et al. 2014). Its name was originally proposed by Vizzini et al. (2011) to honor the Swiss mycologist Enzo Musumeci, who was the first to collect this genus from Alsace (France). Molecular data revealed that this genus is closely related to Pseudoclitocybe. The genus Musumecia was established to encompass clitocyboid fungi phylogenetically close to Pseudoclitocybe with a hygrophoroid habit (non-depressed convex pileus and distant thick lamellae), a cutis-like pileipellis, regular hymenophoral trama, elongated basidia, smooth acyanophilous and inamyloid spores, absence of hymenial cystidia and clamp-connections (Vizzini et al. 2011). The type species, M. bettlachensis Vizzini & Contu (Vizzini et al. 2011), is whitish and grows caespitose in Abies alba, Fraxinus sp., and Fagus sp. forests, while the only other known taxon, M. vermicularis Musumeci (Musumeci 2014), has a zonate brownish dark pileus, is gregarious but not caespitose, grows under Carpinus betulus, and produces rhizomorphs. Although the genus Musumecia was originally described with inamyloid spores (Vizzini et al. 2011), the spores of M. bettlachensis (holotypus TO HG2284) examined under a standardized procedure by some of the authors turned out to be weakly amyloid in grey colour.Moreover, the spores of M. sardoa are clearly amyloid. Thus, the amyloidity feature should not be used to qualitatively discriminate spores of Musumecia and Pseudoclitocybe, and so, the generic diagnosis has to be amended accordingly.
Key to the known species of Musumecia
1. Pileus ivory-white to cream-white……M. bettlachensis
1. Pileus dark coloured………………………………….2
2. Spores minutely ornamented, presence of hymenial
cystidia and clamp-connections abundant in all tissues……………………………………….M. alpina
2. Spores smooth, absence of hymenial cystidia and clampconnections rare and scattered………………………..3
3. With abundant white rhizomorphs at the stipe base; pileipellis with cystidioid terminal elements………… M. vermicularis
3. Without rhizomorphs; pileipellis without cystidioid elements…………M. sardoa
Species