Clavuliella Q. Zhou & C. L. Zhao, 2025

Zhou, Qian, Qian, Chengbin, Zhang, Chuyun, Su, Qidong, Li, Yiliang, Zhang, Shihui, Mu, Nian, Xu, Taimin, Zhou, Hongmin & Zhao, Changlin, 2025, Morphology and multigene phylogeny reveals five new species of Hydnaceae (Cantharellales, Basidiomycota) from China, MycoKeys 119, pp. 67-94 : 67-94

Clavuliella Q. Zhou & C. L. Zhao gen. nov.

Type species.

Clavuliella sinensis Q. Zhou & C. L. Zhao , sp. nov.

Etymology.

Clavuliella (Lat.): refers to the related genus Clavulina.

Description.

Basidiomata annual, coralloid, gregarious to caespitose clusters, greyish white to light grey when fresh, turning to dark grey upon drying; with sharply acuminate or cristate tips. Hyphal system monomitic, generative hyphae simple-septa, colorless, slightly thick-walled, frequently branched, interwoven. Cystidia and cystidioles absent. Basidia cylindrical, with a median constriction, with 2 sterigmata and a basal simple-septum, with oily contents. Basidiospores subglobose to broadly ellipsoid, colorless, thin-walled, smooth, with oil drop, IKI –, CB –.

Notes.

In our phylogenetical analyses (Fig. 1 ), Clavuliella was identified as a monophyletic group, typified by C. sinensis . The new genus Clavuliella falls within the family Hydnaceae ( Cantharellales ) and is closely related to Clavulina . Clavulina is distinguished from Clavuliella by its clavarioid to coralloid, simple or branched basidiomata with amphigenous hymenia, cylindrical to subclavate basidia with two or more cornuted sterigmata ( Schröter 1888; Uehling et al. 2012; He et al. 2019; Gao et al. 2024).

Clavuliella resembles Clavulina in sharing coralloid basidiomata, subglobose, thin-walled basidiospores. However, Clavuliella differs from Clavulina by cylindrical basidia, with a median constriction, slightly thick-walled, with 2 sterigmata and a basal simple-septum, with oily contents and simple-septa generative hyphae. In this study, Clavuliella originating from the subtropical regions, suggests the possibility of discovering new corticioid taxa through further investigations and molecular analyses.

Figures

Figure 1. Maximum Parsimony strict consensus tree illustrating the phylogeny of four new species and a new genus within Hydnaceae, based on ITS + nLSU sequences. Branches are labelled with Maximum Likelihood bootstrap values ≥ 70 %, parsimony bootstrap values ≥ 50 % and Bayesian posterior probabilities ≥ 0.95, respectively.