Terfezia cistophila Ant. Rodr., Bordallo, V. Kaounas, & Morte, 2015

Bordallo, Juan-Julián, Rodríguez, Antonio, Kaounas, Vasileios, Camello, Francisco, Honrubia, Mario & Morte, Asunción, 2015, Two new Terfezia species from Southern Europe, Phytotaxa 230 (3), pp. 239-249 : 245

Terfezia cistophila Ant. Rodr., Bordallo, V. Kaounas, & Morte , sp. nov. Fig. 3

MycoBank 811777

Type:— GREECE, Magnesia, Zagora, 25 April 2014, leg V. Kaounas (Holotype, MUB Fung-j477).

Ascomata hypogeous to partially emergent at maturity, solitary or gregarious, 0.5–2 cm in size, subglobose, often basal depression with a mycelial tuft, sometimes rounded sterile base, light beige at first, becoming dark reddish brown, with black spots, with some pitting at maturity, smooth ( Fig. 3 A&B ). Peridium poorly delimited, 150–400 μm thick, pseudoparenchymatous, composed of subglobose cells, 10–60 μm diam, hyalines and thin-walled in the innermost layers, yellowish and with thicker walls, up to 2,5 μm thick, in the outermost layers. Gleba solid, fleshy, succulent, whitish with greyish pockets at first, maturing to light ochre, darkening to pale brown at maturity, pockets of fertile tissue separated by whitish, sterile veins, sometimes with pink salmon spots (Fig. A – B). Faint odour, spermatic, more remarkable in young specimens. Mild taste.

Asci nonamyloid, subglobose to ovate, sessile or short-stipitate, 55–65 x 45–50 μm, walls 1 μm thick, with 6–8 irregularly disposed spores ( Fig. 3 E ), randomly arranged in the gleba. Ascospores globose, (16–)17–20(–21) μm diam (mean = 18.5 μm) including ornament, 13–16 μm (mean= 14.5 μm) without ornament, hyaline, smooth and uniguttulate at first, by maturity yellow ochre and ornamented with conical, separate, pointed, sometimes truncated spines, 1.5 –2.5 μm long, 1 μm wide at the base ( Fig. 3 E&F ).

Ecology and Distribution:— Terfezia cistophila grows in acid soils, associated with Cistus monspeliensis L. and Cistus creticus L., from February to April, in Greece and associated with Cistus ladanifer L., from April to May in Spain, Extremadura.

Etymology:—referring to its host plants affinity, which are mainly Cistus species.

Additional collections examined:— GREECE: ATTICA, Artemida, 2013, V. Kaounas (MUB Fung-j377); Rafina, 2013, V. Kaounas (MUB Fung-j384); Nea Makri, 2014, V. Kaounas (MUB Fung-j474); MAGNESIA, Zagora, 2009, V. Kaounas (MUB Fung-j392). Same locality, 2014, V. Kaounas (MUB Fung-j479). SPAIN: EXTREMADURA, BADAJOZ: San Vicente de Alcántara, 2010, A. García (MUB Fung-j034). Same locality, 2010, F. Camello (MUB Fung-j037). CÁCERES: Cedillo, 2010, F. Camello (MUB Fung-j038); Aliseda, 2010, A. Rodríguez (MUB Fungj113).

Notes:— Terfezia cistophila is a spiny-spored Terfezia species characterized by its intense blackening of peridium, light ochre gleba, spermatic odour and growing in acid soils associated with Cistus spp. It differs from T. albida , the other spiny-spored species with spermatic odour, in growing in alkaline clay soils, has larger ascomata, white peridium, grayish green gleba and larger spores. T. fanfani , T. pseudoleptoderma , T. extremadurensis , T. pini and T. leptoderma , the other spiny-spored species growing in acid soil, have larger spores with distinctly longer spines than T. cistophila and no distinctive odour ( Table 2). Moreover the new taxon is distinguished from the other species based on ITS sequence identity ( Fig. 1 ).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Neighbor-Joining (NJ) consensus phylogenetic tree based on ITS sequences. Bold numbers are percentages of 1000 bootstrapping replicates supporting the NJ tree presented here. Non-bold numbers are percentages of 500 bootstrapping replicates supporting the same node by the MP method.

FIGURE 3. Terfezia cistophila: (A, B) inmature ascocarp, (C) semi-mature ascocarp, (D) mature ascocarps, (E, F) asci with ascospores. Bars: 20 μm.