Pleurella ardesiaca (G. Stev. & G.M. Taylor) E. Horak, N.Z. Jl Bot. 9(3): 477 (1971)

Index Fungorum number: IF 320667; MycoBank number: MB 320667; Facesofungi number: FoF 14228; Fig. 1

Macromorphology – On rotten wood and bark of unidentified host. Pileus 13–40 mm diam., convex to plano-convex at first, then becoming umbellate to plane, margin smooth; white (5A1), grayish orange (5B4–7), brownish orange (5C5–6), brown (5E6–7); Lamellae adnate, emarginated or subdecurrent, regular, very crowded, white (1A1) at the beginning, later turning cream coloured (18B1), pale orange (5A5) when maturity or after bruising; gill edge even. Stipe 30–50×3–5 mm, subcylindrical to cylindrical, excentric or lateral, rarely central, curved, solid; concolorous with pileus or paler on the upper part, with darker dots near the base. Context white (1A1). Taste and odour not observed.

Micromorphology – Basidiospores [40/1/2] 4–5×2–3 μm, elliptical or subcylindrical, smooth, thin-walled, strongly amyloid, germ pore absent. Basidia 15–20 × 4–5 μm. Cheilocystidia 22–50 × 4–11 μm, clavate or cylindrical, occasionally with a short projection at the apex, hyaline. thin-walled. forming a sterile zone at the edge. Caulocystidia 35–55×6–9 μm, cylindrical, thin-walled, with brown membranal or epicellular pigment. Clamp connections present.

Material examined – China, Yunnan Province, Jingdong County, Ailaoshan National Nature Reserve, 24° 30′ 56.875248″ N, 101° 1′ 8.445936″ E, alt 2409 m, 28 July 2018, Jianwei Liu, LJW1122 (HKAS 125916, new geographical record).

Hosts and distribution – on rotten wood and bark of (infrequently on living trees) of Phyllocladus alpinus, rarely on Dacrydium cupressinum or Nothofagus spp. (Horak 1971). Currently, this species only known from New Zealand and China.

GenBank numbers – ITS: OP876783, LSU: OP866793.

Notes – The combined ITS and LSU sequence analyses of our collection (Fig. 2) revealed that our collection grouped with Pleurella ardesiaca (SH-aLRT/UFB) forming a monophyletic, clade with ML/BI = 100%/95.5 statistical support. The morphology of our collection also fits with the prologue of P. ardesiaca. The holotype of P. ardesiaca was collected from New Zealand (Southern Hemisphere) (Horak 1971), and has not been reported in other regions of the world. However, our collection was occurred Yunnan Province, China (Northern Hemisphere) that 6000 km away from New Zealand. This collection of P. ardesiaca indicates the geographical distribution of the species and here, we report this as a new geographical record.

Figure 1 – Pleurella ardesiaca (HKAS 125916). a, b Fruiting bodies on host substrate. c Basidia. d Basidiospores. e Cheilocystidia. f Caulocystidia. Scale bars: a, b=4 cm, c=0.5 cm, d=4 μm, e–f=1 μm

Figure 2 – Phylogram generated from maximum likelihood analysis based on combined ITS and nrLSU sequence data representing the species of Pleurella. Baeospora myosura AFTOL-ID 1799 and B. myriadophylla DAOM 188774 are selected as the outgroup taxa. Statistical supports are indicated next to each node, non-parametric maximum likelihood ultrafast-bootstrap (UFBS) values and SH-aLRT obtained from 1000 replicates using IQ-TREE and the TIM2+F+G4 model. Bootstrap support for maximum likelihood with Shimodaira Hasegawa-like approximate likelihood ratio test (SH-aLRT) (left),
ultrafast bootstrap (right). Only one of SH-aLRT>80 or UFB>95 for ML are indicated along branches (SH-aLRT/UFB). Eight collections are included in the combined analyses which comprise 1546 sites of which 1375 were found to be conserved, 164 were the variable sites and included nearly 152 parsimony-informative sites. The optimized log-likelihood value is−3041.750. Estimated base frequencies are as follows: A=0.249, C=0.198, G=0.262, T=0.290; substitution rates AC=2.46489, AG=4.95937, AT=2.46489, CG=1.0, CT=13.63798, GT=1.0; gamma distribution shape parameter α=0.168. New sequence data of Pleurella ardesiaca (HKAS 125916) is highlighted in blue bold