Lycogala fasciculovesiculiferum W. L. Song, Min Li & Shuang L. Chen, 2025

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 fasciculovesiculiferum W. L. Song, Min Li & Shuang L. Chen sp. nov.

Fig. 7

GenBank accession numbers.

PQ 685945 (SSU).

Etymology.

Fasciculus (Latin) small bundle or bunch, and vesicula (Latin) vesicle, referring to the clustered peridial vesicles.

Diagnosis.

Differs from L. exiguum by darker peridium, rounded opaque multilayer aggregates of vesicles, and thin vesicle walls with no outer layer covering the whole group.

Description.

Sporocarps scattered or in small tight groups, spherical to vertically or horizontally oval, sometimes deformed by mutual pressure, 1.4–2.5 mm in diameter. Peridium membranous, yellowish brown with olivaceous tones or darker, with dense vesicle cover in the upper part of sporocarp, while the lower part is covered much more sparsely. The inner surface of the peridium smooth. Vesicles appear black under RL, deep warm brown or lighter under TL, (31 –) 33–40 (– 50) μm in diameter, semi-translucent, forming rounded multilayer aggregates, with 4–7 vesicles across the group and central part opaque due to the overlapping of vesicles. Crystals and oil droplets not observed. Capillitium (2.9 –) 4.2–5.6 (– 7.4) μm in diameter, hyaline under TL, with wavy contour, lacking bracelet-like thickening or with very weak ones, densely decorated with small warts and pits. Spore mass, as seen in old collections, yellow with ochraceous undertones or darker, hyaline under TL, (5.4 –) 5.7–5.9 (– 6.2) μm in diameter, reticulate, with 5–6 meshes across diameter, unornamented area occupies 1 / 4 of the spore surface. Plasmodium unknown.

Distribution.

Currently known only from China.

Habitat.

On rotten wood.

Holotype.

CHINA • Henan Province: Baotianman National Nature Reserve , 33.5172°N, 111.9506°E, on rotten wood, 25 Sep 2016, collected by Yang Gao and Gao-Wei Wang ( HFNNU 11281 ).

Additional specimens examined.

CHINA • Hubei Province: Houhe National Nature Reserve , 30.0925°N, 110.5932°E, on rotten wood, 20 Jul 2019, collected by Min Li ( HFNNU 11274 ) ; • Houhe National Nature Reserve , 30.0874°N, 110.6076°E, on rotten wood, 30 Aug 2019, collected by Min Li ( HFNNU 11276 ) ; • Houhe National Nature Reserve , 30.0879°N, 110.6382°E, on rotten wood, 30 Aug 2019, collected by Min Li ( HFNNU 11277 ) ; • Houhe National Nature Reserve , 30.0907°N, 110.6210°E, on rotten wood, 30 Aug 2019, collected by Min Li ( HFNNU 11278 ) . • Guangdong Province: Dinghu Mountain National Nature Reserve , 23.1798°N, 112.5480°E, on rotten wood, 29 May 2014, collected by Bin Wei and Gang He ( HFNNU 11275 ) . • Henan Province: Baotianman National Nature Reserve , 33.5145°N, 111.9492°E, on rotten wood, 25 Sep 2016, collected by Yang Gao and Gao-Wei Wang ( HFNNU 11279 ) ; • Shunhuang Mountain National Forest Park , 26.4037°N, 111.0553°E, on rotten wood, 13 Jul 2015, collected by Yang Gao and Gao-Wei Wang ( HFNNU 11280 ) .

Notes.

The small sporocarps, thin capillitium, and densely clustered vesicles may lead to the identification of L. fasciculovesiculiferum as L. exiguum . However, the vesicle walls in L. exiguum are rather thick and multi-layered, with the outer layer covering the whole group, while the vesicle walls in L. fasciculovesiculiferum are thin, with no common layer for the group. The shape of vesicle aggregates is mostly elongate in L. exiguum , but isodiametric in L. fasciculovesiculiferum . Oil droplets in L. exiguum are large, one or few in the central part of the vesicle, or small, forming granular deposits. In L. fasciculovesiculiferum we did not observe oil accumulations. From a phylogenetic perspective (Fig. 2 ), the eight specimens representing L. fasciculovesiculiferum form a separate clade (UBS = 100, PP = 1). The species status of L. fasciculovesiculiferum is supported in all partitions created by ASAP (Suppl. material 7).

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 7. Morphological characteristics of Lycogala fasciculovesiculiferum: A – C sporocarps; D the outer surface of the peridium; E capillitium; F capillitium (SEM); G, H peridial vesicles; I the inner surface of the peridium (SEM); J the detail of capillitium ornamentation (SEM); K, L spore; M spores (SEM). Scale bars: 1 mm (A – D); 100 μm (G, H); 10 μm (E, J); 5 μm (F, I, K – M).