Two new rare species of Candolleomyces with pale spores from China

Abstract

Most species of Candolleomyces have brown or dark brown spores. Although pale-spored members are rare in the genus, we frequently collected two such species from many Provinces during our investigations in subtropical China from 2016-2020. As revealed by morphological characterisation and multigene phylogenetic analyses (ITS, LSU, ß-tub and tef-1a), these species, which we have named C. subcacao and C. subminutisporus, are unique and distinct from known taxa. In addition, a new combination, C. cladii-marisci, is proposed on the basis of ITS sequence analysis of the type specimen. Detailed descriptions, colour photos, illustrations and a key to related species are presented.