Lycogala planovesiculiferum W. L. Song, Z. Q. Jiang & 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 planovesiculiferum W. L. Song, Z. Q. Jiang & Shuang L. Chen sp. nov.

Fig. 12

GenBank accession numbers.

PQ 685819 (SSU) and PQ 728314 (COI).

Etymology.

Planus (Latin) flat, and vesicula (Latin) vesicle, referring to the flattened vesicles on the outer surface of the peridium.

Diagnosis.

Differs from L. alisaulianovae and L. roseosporum by light deep warm brown spore mass and small, flat peridial vesicles.

Description.

Sporocarps scattered, spherical, short horizontally oval, or somewhat irregular, 1.7–2.9 mm in diameter. Peridium thin, membranous, muted olive-brown or lighter, evenly covered with flattened vesicles. Inner peridial surface smooth or covered with scattered small warts. Vesicles brown under RL, light ochre or lighter, circular, or shuttle-shaped under TL, or 2–3 connected, (51 –) 63–77 (– 104) μm in diameter, containing irregular oil droplets. Capillitium tubular, (4.8 –) 5.7–7.3 (– 13.8) μm in diameter, hyaline under TL, with wavy contour and weak bracelet-like thickenings, free ends more or less swollen. The surface of capillitium ornamented with rather chaotic reticulum of warts and pits, and occasional ring-like islets. Spore mass in old collections rich warm red or lighter, hyaline under TL, (5.9 –) 6.5–6.8 (– 7.1) μm in diameter, reticulate, with 4–5 meshes across diameter, unornamented area occupies 1 / 4 of the spore surface. Plasmodium unknown.

Distribution.

Currently known only from China and Vietnam ( Leontyev et al. 2023 a).

Habitat.

On rotten wood.

Holotype.

CHINA • Zhejiang Province: Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve , 30.3233°N, 119.4562°E, on rotten wood, 17 Jun 2024, collected by Wen-Long Song and Ya-Jing Chen ( HFNNU 10819 ).

Additional specimens examined.

CHINA • Zhejiang Province: Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve , 30.3496°N, 119.4466°E, on rotten wood, 18 Jun 2024, collected by Wen-Long Song and Ya-Jing Chen ( HFNNU 10820 ) ; • Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve , 30.3469°N, 119.4411°E, on rotten wood, 18 Jun 2024, collected by Wen-Long Song and Ya-Jing Chen ( HFNNU 10821 ) . • Anhui Province: Huang Mountain National Forest Park , 30.1573°N, 118.1930°E, on rotten wood, 5 Jul 2008, collected by Shuang-Lin Chen ( HFNNU 11346 ) .

Notes.

Small sporocarps covered by solitary drop-like vesicles, as well as capillitium decorated with small pits and warts, make L. planovesiculiferum similar to L. alisaulianovae and L. roseosporum . However, these two species have different pigmentation of spore mass, bluish-gray and bright pink, respectively. Vesicles in L. planovesiculiferum are smaller than in both related species (50–105 µm vs. 100–300 µm in L. alisaulianovae and L. roseosporum ). From a phylogenetic perspective (Fig. 2 ), the specimens representing L. planovesiculiferum form a sister group with L. oncoides but with low statistical support. These two species do not seem closely related, since L. oncoides has aggregated oil-containing peridial vesicles. The separation of L. planovesiculiferum 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 12. Morphological characteristics of Lycogala planovesiculiferum: A sporocarps; B spore mass; C the outer surface of the peridium; D, E peridial vesicles; F the inner surface of the peridium (SEM); G the bulbous free ends of the capillitium (SEM); H the bulbous free ends of the capillitium; I capillitium; J the detail of capillitium ornamentation (SEM); K spores; L spores (SEM). Scale bars: 1 mm (A – C); 100 μm (D); 20 μm (E); 10 μm (F – L).