Lycogala skovorodaense Leontyev, Schnittler & Ishchenko, 2023

Song, Wen-Long, Jiang, Zi-Qiong, Li, Min, Leontyev, Dmytro, Gao, Yang & Chen, Shuang-Lin, 2025, Comprehensive revision of Lycogala (Myxomycetes) in subtropical China: morphological and phylogenetic insights and ten new species, IMA Fungus 16, pp. e 147535-e 147535 : e147535-

Lycogala skovorodaense Leontyev, Schnittler & Ishchenko , in Leontyev, Ishchenko & Schnittler, Mycologia 115 (4): 542 (2023)

Fig. 14

Specimen examined.

CHINA • Zhejiang Province: Tianmu Mountain National Reserve , 30.3299°N, 119.4543°E, on rotten wood, 18 Jun 2024, collected by Wen-Long Song and Ya-Jing Chen ( HFNNU 9993 ) . • Jiangsu Province: Zijin Mountain National Forest Park , 32.0806°N, 118.8444°E, on rotten wood, 20 Jul 2024, collected by Wen-Long Song, Qian Meng, and Ya-Jing Chen ( HFNNU 10815 ) ; • Zijin Mountain National Forest Park , 32.0769°N, 118.8447°E, on rotten wood, 20 Jul 2024, collected by Wen-Long Song, Qian Meng, and Ya-Jing Chen ( HFNNU 10816 ) ; • Zijin Mountain National Forest Park , 32.0831°N, 118.8402°E, on rotten wood, 20 Jul 2024, collected by Wen-Long Song, Qian Meng, and Ya-Jing Chen ( HFNNU 11225 ) . • Hubei Province: Houhe National Nature Reserve , 30.0808°N, 110.5808°E, on rotten wood, 30 Aug 2019, collected by Min Li ( HFNNU 11220 ) .

Distribution.

Ukraine, Russia, Germany ( Leontyev et al. 2023 b), and China (this study).

Notes.

Lycogala skovorodaense is recorded in China for the first time. The main characteristics of this species are small, dark brown sporocarps, accreted peridial vesicles, forming dense, rounded, rosette-like clusters, as well as oil accumulations in vesicles, the capillitium ornamented by large warts and spines, the spores mass that is gray or warm gray, and the spores with 4–6 meshes across their diameter ( Leontyev et al. 2023 b). The Chinese collections show slight differences in capillitium ornamentation compared to the original description ( Leontyev et al. 2023 b). We observed two types of ornamentation (Fig. 14 G – I ): one containing ridges and clustered warts (Fig. 14 H ), and another ornamented with small warts, pits, and irregular ring-like inlets; the latter type is not directly mentioned in the original description. The phylogenetic analysis (Fig. 2 ) has clustered the Chinese specimens ( HFNNU 9993 , HFNNU 10815 , HFNNU 10816 , HFNNU 11220 , and HFNNU 11255 ) with L. skovorodaense (IY 15, CWP 4234, CWP 4169, and sc 27535) with strong support (UBS = 100, PP = 1).

Figures

Figure 2. Maximum likelihood tree inferred from the concatenated sequences of SSU and COI, showing the phylogenetic relationship of Lycogala. The members of Reticularia were used to root the tree. Only Maximum likelihood ultrafast bootstrap support (UBS) / Bayesian posterior probabilities (PP) ≥ 70 / 0.7 are shown. The voucher numbers are indicated after the species names. The number of identical genotypes is in parentheses (if present). The ten new species described in this study are indicated in red and bold. The four new species to China are indicated in blue and bold. Other newly obtained sequences are in bold. The scale bar represents the number of substitutions per site.

Figure 14. Morphological characteristics of Lycogala skovorodaense: A, B sporocarp; C the outer surface of the peridium; D peridial vesicles; E the inner surface of the peridium (SEM); F the bulbous free ends of the capillitium; G the bulbous free ends of the capillitium (SEM); H the detail of capillitium ornamentation (SEM); I the branch of the capillitium (SEM); J spore; K, L spores (SEM). Scale bars: 1 mm (A, C); 1.5 mm (B); 100 μm (D); 20 μm (G, I); 10 μm (E, F, J); 5 μm (H, L); 2 μm (K).