Ramaria subalpina K. Das & K. Acharya, 2016

Das, Kanad, Hembrom, M. E., Dutta, Arun Kumar, Parihar, Arvind, Paloi, Soumitra & Acharya, Krishnendu, 2016, Ramaria subalpina (Gomphaceae): a new edible fungus from India, Phytotaxa 246 (2), pp. 137-144 : 139

Ramaria subalpina K. Das & K. Acharya sp. nov. Figures 1 & 2

MycoBank:—MB814581

Diagnosis:—Basidiomata 120–135 × 89–95 mm, solitary to gregarious, habitat on the ground, stipe-surface becoming blood red at base on bruising, ultimate branch tips brownish red to violet brown, generative hyphae rarely clamped, basidiospores 10.5–15 × 4–6 μm, ellipsoid or elongate, minute to distinctly verrucose.

Holotype:— INDIA. Sikkim: North district, near Samthang , alt. 3396 m, N 27°49ʹ35.6ʺ E 88°33ʹ06.7ʺ, 22 nd July 2014, K. Das, KD-14-006 (Holotype, CAL).

Etymology:—refers to the subalpine region of Sikkim, the type locality

Basidiomata 120–135 × 89–95 mm, annual, gregarious to solitary, erect, obpyramidal to subcylindrical in outline, large, laterally profuse. Stipe 15–25 × 35–50 mm, represented by thick embedded (rudimentary) base, fleshy and moist when fresh, light and brittle on drying, smooth, glabrous, pastel yellow (3A4) when fresh and ochraceous to ochrebrown on drying, internal flesh chalky white, basal part blood red near the surface when bruised and/or after maturity. Branches in 5–6 ranks, dichotomously throughout, pastel yellow (3A4) when young, becoming paler with maturity or heavy rain; primary branch 4–6 in numbers, 5–20 mm wide ascending to flaring, pale yellow to ochraceous; ultimate branchlet 1–5 mm long, dichotomous, compact and appear as cauliflower like; apices blunt, subacute to acute, pale yellow when young, becoming blood red or brownish red to violet brown (10D7–10E7) after bruising or at maturity. Taste mild, odor fungoid. Context chalky opaque, turning slightly greenish with FeSO 4, chalky white with Guaiacol but, remains unchanging with KOH.

Hyphal system monomitic, generative hyphae frequently septate, rarely clamped, branched, smooth, hyaline; basal region tramal hyphae 2–5 μm wide and inflated to 7 μm, branched, thin-walled, parallel and compactly arranged, hyaline; tramal hyphae of branches 2.5–6 μm wide and inflated to 14 μm, compactly interwoven, unbranched (mostly), thin-walled, hyaline. Hymenium throughout the basidiomata. Basidioles 30–60 × 7–10 μm, elongate clavate, smooth, hyaline. Basidia 35–65 × 8–13 μm, elongate clavate, few appeared clamped at base but septate mostly, multiguttulate, 4-sterigmate, sterigmata 2–6 μm long and erect, hyaline. Basidiospores 10.5–(12.2)–15 × 4–(5.2)–6 μm, ellipsoid or elongate, minute to distinctly verrucose, apiculate (to 2 μm long), one to multiguttulate, pale yellow, non cyanophilic, inamyloid.

Habitat: Growing solitary to gregariously under Abies densa Griff. in subalpine mixed forest.

Molecular phylogeny:

Phylogenetic analyses were performed based on ITS dataset. Sequencing products of the newly described species ranged 625 nucleotides. All sequences were aligned and the ends trimmed to create a dataset of 688 nucleotides that included 289 parsimony informative characters. Each of the ML analysis iterations recovered a single tree, the likelihood values of which did not differ significantly. We have selected the topology resulting from the first iteration to present here ( Figure 3 ; -ln L = 2712.3965). Parsimony analyses produced most parsimonious tree with length = 550, Consistency Index (CI) = 0.515267, Retention Index (RI) = 0.700472, Composite Index = 0.376981 (0.360930), did not differ significantly in topology from those recovered in the ML analyses. Bayesian analyses reached a standard deviation of split frequencies of 0.005 after 106 generations, and the initial 25% trees recovered were excluded as the burn-in. Maximum likelihood bootstrap values (BS) and Bayesian posterior probabilities (PP) support many of the terminal nodes in the phylogeny, but fail to recover the deeper nodes with strong support. Accession numbers of newly generated ITS sequence (KT824242), as well as those pulled from GenBank and UNITE databases, are presented in Figure 3 .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Ramaria subalpina sp. nov. (KD 14-006, Holotype) A. Fresh basidiomata; B & D. Basidiomata showing blood red to brownish red ultimate branchlet; C. Stipe-base of basidiomata becoming blood red on bruising; E. Basidiospores; F. SEM images of basidiospores. Scale bars: B=20 mm; E=10 μm; F=5 μm.

FIGURE 2. Ramaria subalpina sp. nov. (from KD 14-006, Holotype). A. Basidiospores; B. Basidium and Basidioles; C. Tramal hyphae from basal region; D. Tramal hyphae from branches. Scale bars: A–D=10 μm.

FIGURE 3. Maximum likelihood tree (-lnL = 2712.3965) generated using a GTR+I+G model of nucleotide evolution. Numbers to the left of / are MP bootstrap support (MPBS), and those to the right indicate the Maximum likelihood bootstrap (MLBS) support (in bold). MLBS and MPBS values ≥ 70% are shown. Bayesian posterior probabilities (PP)> 0.95 are indicated as black coloured thickened lines and the scale bar represents the expected changes per site. Ramaria subalpina is placed in bold font to highlight its phylogenetic position in the tree.