Volvopluteus earlei (Agaricales, Pluteaceae), new to Japan

Abstract

The present study reports the identification of Volvopluteus earlei for the first time in Japan, and provides descriptions and illustrations of its morphological characteristics based on specimens collected from the Niigata and Chiba prefectures. V. earlei had small (less than 50 mm in diameter) pileus, an average basidiospore length longer than 12 µm, and rostrate cheilocystidia, and lacked pleurocystidia. Maximum parsimony analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of nuclear ribosomal DNA revealed that Japanese, Indian, African and European samples of V. earlei possessed nearly identical ITS sequences, suggesting that V. earlei is widely distributed throughout multiple continents.