Calvatia natarajanii Senthil. & C. Ravindran, 2018

Gunasekaran, Senthilarasu, Chinnarajan, Ravindran & Parasnis, Anjali, 2018, Notes on Indian species of Calvatia and Langermannia including Calvatia natarajanii sp. nov., Phytotaxa 362 (2), pp. 160-172 : 163-167

Calvatia natarajanii Senthil. & C. Ravindran sp. nov. ( Figs. 1 , 2–3 )

MycoBank MB 819531; GenBank MF595877

Diagnosis:—Basidiomes with white to orange-white exoperidium, orange to grayish red, persistent endoperidium, grayish orange to brownish orange cottony gleba, persistent, cellular subgleba, globose to subglobose, echinulate basidiospores (3–7 × 2.5–7 μm) and Calvatia - type capillitial threads.

Type:— INDIA. Maharashtra State, Thane District, Navi Mumbai, Parsik Hills (19.01ʹ83.95ʺN, 73.03ʹ30.75ʺE), early South West monsoon season, 24 June 2016, G. Senthilarasu (holotype AMH 9836!, isotype MH-TERI V1-T1).

Etymology:—The specific epithet ‘ natarajanii ’ refers to the late Prof. K. Natarajan, Center for Advanced Studies in Botany, University of Madras, in honor of his significant contribution to Indian Mycology.

Description: —Basidiomes 15–75 mm diam., 10–70 mm high, initially subglobose, becoming pear-shaped to turbinate, attached by the rhizomorph with short white rhizoid at the base, 7–15 mm long. Exoperidium smooth to furfuraceous, uniformly white to yellowish white (4A3) when young, becoming pale orange-white (5A2, 5A3, 6A3, 7B4), breaking up into small, polygonal to irregular shaped flaky patches that randomly slough off the apical portion, persisting at base, yellowish white (4A3). Endoperidium thin, orange-white (5A2) to pale orange (5A3) to grayish orange (6B3) to brownish orange (7C4-7C5) to grayish red (8C4-8C5), thin, persistent even after drying. Gleba 15–30 mm high, initially white to pale yellowish white (2A2), not changing on bruising, becoming yellowish gray (3B2) to beige (4C3), finally becoming light orange (5A4) to grayish orange (5B4) to brownish orange (6C4) on drying, cottony, firm, persistent. Subgleba 12–30 mm high, initially undifferentiated from gleba, becoming spongy, cellular, white to yellowish white (4A2) when young, becoming yellowish white (4A2) to pale yellow (4A3) on drying.

Basidiospores (3)4–5(7) × (2.5)4–5(7), (4.7±0.56 × 4.46±0.61) μm, Q=1.0–1.4, globose, rarely subglobose, strongly echinulate, echinulae ≤1.5 μm high, yellowish brown in water, cyanophilous, dextrinoid; pedicellate in young basidiomes, pedicel short, ≤3.5 μm long, apedicellate in mature basidiomes. Basidia 9–15 × 8–10 μm, subglobose to pyriform, thin-walled, tetrasporic, bearing four sterigmata, ≤4 μm long, evanescent in mature basidiomes. Capillitial threads of the Calvatia type; eucapillitial threads 1–5.5(6) μm diam., hyaline, with yellowish to reddish brown thick wall, ≤1 μm, fragile, straight to subundulate, septate, often disarticulated at septum, sparsely dichotomously branched, with abundant small to large perforations; perforations 1–16 × 1–4 μm, circular to ovoid to elongate-cylindrical. Paracapillitial threads absent. Exoperidial hyphae comprising of loosely arranged, irregular chains of variable shape, simple pyriform, cylindrical, elongate-clavate, ovoid, dumbbell-shaped to lageniform to irregular, 23–120 × 9–34 μm, rarely branched, hyaline to pale brown, thick-walled, ≤1.5 μm diam. Endoperidial hyphae 2–8 μm diam., thick-walled, septate. Subgleba hyphae 1–5.5 μm diam., sometimes inflated to 11 μm diam., often sinuous, branched, aseptate, thick-walled, ≤1 μm thick; thin-walled, septate. Rhizomorphs with three different hyphae: hyaline hyphae, up to 11 μm diam., septate without lumen, branched; subhyaline to pale brown hyphae, 1–7 μm diam., aseptate with thin lumen, branched; inner subhyaline to pale brown to golden brown hyphae, 6–50 μm diam., aseptate, unbranched, thin-walled.

Habitat:—On soil, solitary, scattered to gregarious, under Samanea saman (Jacq.) Merr. plantations. Known only from the type locality.

Additional specimens examined:— INDIA. Maharashtra State, Thane District, Navi Mumbai, Parsik Hills (19.01ʹ83.95ʺN, 73.03ʹ30.75ʺE), early South West monsoon season, 13 June 2017 (TERI V13-T1 and in personal collections), G. Senthilarasu.

Comments:—Two collections were made from the same locality and more than 20 basidiomes were collected from both the collections. It was observed that the endoperidium was intact in all the collections and the gleba was grayish orange becoming brownish orange on drying.

Calvatia natarajanii clusters with the species having violaceous gleba in the phylogenetic tree. However, Calvatia cyathiformis and C. fragilis differ from C. natarajanii macroscopically in having a distinctly violaceous, pulverulent gleba and microscopically in having larger basidiospores (5–7 μm, Kasuya & Retnowati 2006, 5.6–8.0 μm, Bates et al. 2009, 6–8.5 μm, Cortez et al. 2012 for C. cyathiformis , and for C. fragilis 6.4–8.0 μm, Bates et al. 2009), whereas, C. natarajanii has brownish orange gleba and smaller spores (4.7 × 4.4 μm).

Calvatia rugosa (Berkeley & Curtis in Berkeley 1868: 345) Reid (1977: 671) ( Cortez et al. 2012) closely resembles C. natarajanii in having similar shaped and sized basidiomes (23–83 mm diam., 19–66 mm high), similar sized, yellowish brown basidiospores (3–5 μm) and capillitial threads (2–4.5 μm diam.). However, C. rugosa morphologically clearly differs from C. natarajanii in having purplish brown to dark brown basidiomes, a granulose to furfuraceous exoperidium with pinkish brown tints at the base, turning yellow on bruising, becoming orange-yellow overall with age and a gleba that exudes distinctly orange-yellow pigment when cut or injured and becomes olive yellow ( Cortez et al. 2012) to brownish yellow ( Bates et al. 2009) in age.

Calvatia rubroflava ( Cragin 1885: 36) Lloyd (1899: 12) is the widely known name in American literature for C. rugosa . Based on the description of Lycoperdon rubroflavum Cragin (1885: 36) , a basionym of C. rubroflava not originally described but reported in Saccardo’s Sylloge Fungorum, the species is distinguished by the equally rounded basidiomes with an orange-red to orange-brown peridium covered by grayish white spines becoming black, a radicated, wrinkled stipe and an olive orange spore mass with depressed, subglobose basidiospores. In addition, the spores of L. rubroflavum are smooth ( Cragin 1885, Bates et al. 2009).

A species from Sri Lanka, Lycoperdon rugosum Berkeley & Curtis in Berkeley (1868: 345), a basionym for the species C. rugosa , is characterized by basidiomes having a tomentose peridium, a wrinkled, shortly radicated stipe, a large sterile base confluent with the gleba and yellow, smooth spores.

Zeller & Smith (1964) synonymized Lycoperdon rubroflavum with Calvatia rubroflava and characterized the species as having a small amount of homogenous subgleba and subglobose to broadly ovate, weakly ornamented basidiospores. Dring & Reyner (1967) stated that C. rubroflava has brightly colored basidiomes becoming yellow on bruising, very little subgleba and typical globose spores. Reid (1977) placed L. rubroflavum and L. rugosum under C. rugosa and described the spores of C. rugosa as minutely echinulate. At present, the true identity of L. rubroflavum , L. rugosum and C. rubroflava is not clear.

Calvatia natarajanii also resembles Calvatia aff. rugosa ( Bates et al. 2009) in having similar sized and shaped basidiomes, similar color of the peridium and similar sized and shaped basidiospores. However, Calvatia aff. rugosa clearly differs from C. natarajanii in having basidiomes that stain yellow when fresh and develop a strong orange coloration in the exoperidium when dry. Furthermore, phylogenetically Calvatia aff. rugosa nested with C. rugosa rather than C. natarajanii .

Calvatia pyriformis ( Léveillé 1846: 164) Kreisel (1992: 433) is macroscopically clearly distinguished from C. natarajanii in the larger basidiomes with a chestnut exoperidium and an ochraceous endoperidium becoming rust in color. In addition, the spores of Asiatic specimens of C. pyriformis [ C. gardneri (Berkeley in Berkeley & Broom 1873: 79) Lloyd (1904a: 2)] tend to be broadly ellipsoid ( Dring & Rayner 1967).

The other closely related species are C. vinosa Kasuya & Retnowati (2006: 286) described from Indonesia and C. rosacea Kreisel (1989: 292) described from Macas, Ecuador. Calvatia vinosa resembles C. natarajanii in the similar sized basidiomes (40–60 × 40–50 mm) with reddish peridium, the ochraceous gleba, the minutely developed subgleba and the somewhat similar sized, basidiospores (4–5.5 μm). However, C. vinosa clearly differs from C. natarajanii in having a yellowish brown to reddish brown exoperidium with furfuraceous spines, wine red to reddish purple endoperidium, pulverulent gleba and subglobose to ovoid, verrucose basidiospores, whereas, C. natarajanii has an orange-white, smooth to furfuraceous exoperidium, a brownish orange to grayish red endoperidium, a cottony gleba and globose to subglobose, echinulate basidiospores. Calvatia rosacea differs from C. natarajanii in having a pinkish exoperidium, non-pitted capillitial threads and relatively smaller, globose, punctate or finely verruculose basidiospores (3.5–4.1 vs 3.0–6.0 μm).

Calvatia pyriformis (Lév) Kreisel , Persoonia 14(4): 433 (1992)

Calvatia gardneri was synonymized with C. pyriformis ( Kreisel 1992) .

A specimen collected by Thwaites (1006) from Sri Lanka in 1868 was described as Lycoperdon gautieroides (Berk. & Br. 1873: 79) . Later this species was transferred to Calvatia gautierioides (Berk. & Br. 1873: 79) Petch (1919) by Petch (1919, reference not found).Another specimen collected from Sri Lanka was described as Lycoperdon gardneri Berkeley in Berkeley and Broom (1873: 79) and was later transferred to C. gardneri (Lloyd 1904) . However, there is confusion because Dring and Rayner (1967) mentioned that Lycoperdon gautieroides is a synonym of C. gardneri . Hippoperdon pyriforme Léveillé (1846: 164) is a basionym of Calvatia pyriformis . Kreisel (1992) made a combination nova Calvatia pyriformis based on the specimen Hippoperdon pyriforme and synonymized both Calvatia gardneri and Calvatia gautierioides .

Distribution:—This species has been reported as C. gardneri rather than C. pyriformis in India. ASSAM (Lloyd 1904–1919); MAHARASHTRA: Pune ( Nair & Patil 1977); MEGHALAYA: Shillong (Lloyd 1904–1919); WEST BENGAL (Lloyd 1904–1919).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Calvatia natarajanii:A. Young basidiome. B. Fresh young basidiomes showing gleba and subgleba. C. Mature basidiome. D. Colour variations among basidiomes. E. Dried basidiome. Photos by: Senthilarasu Gunasekaran.

FIGURE 2. Calvatia natarajanii: A. Basidiospores. B. Basidia. C. Exoperidial hyphae. D. Capillitial thread showing branch. Photos by: Senthilarasu Gunasekaran.

FIGURE 3. Calvatia natarajanii SEM images of basidiospores:A. 3500 Magnification. B. 5000 Magnification. C. 10000 Magnification. Photos by: Ravindran Chinnarajan.