Gerhardtia foliicola (Agaricales, Lyophyllaceae), a specific dweller on leaf litter from northern China

Abstract

Gerhardtia foliicola, a fungus likes to grow on leaf litter, was first found in China. A detailed description of its morphological characteristics, habitat photos, and microstructure hand drawings were provided in the present paper. The strain of G. foliicola was cultured in potato dextrose agar medium (PDA) and maltose yeast agar medium (MYA) to study mycelium morphology and culture characteristics. There were conidia in the hyphae that lacked clamp connections and also without antagonism. The nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) and nuclear ribosomal large subunit (nrLSU) sequences data were obtained to construct the phylogenetic trees of Gerhardtia and its related genera based on maximum likelihood (ML), neighbor-joining method (NJ), and Bayesian inference (BI). The results showed that G. foliicola from China and Japan were strongly supported in an evolutionary branch.