Galerina saxicola (Fungi, Agaricales) is conspecific with G. stordalii and new data on ecology of the latter species

Abstract

The holotype of Galerina saxicola Svrcek, a never revised species described from the Czech Republic in 1994, was studied in detail. Due to its poor state and the impossibility to obtain DNA data, we fixed its taxonomic position by designating an epitype using recent material from the type locality. The species proved to be conspecific with Norwegian and Czech collections of Galerina stordalii A.H.Sm., both morphologically and molecularly. Full synonymy and diagnostic characters of G. stordalii are provided, its morphological and ecological variability is discussed, and information on type specimens is corrected. Our collections document that G. stordalii has a broader ecological amplitude than thought before, living not only on Sphagnum and peat in boreal and arctic-alpine habitats like bogs and snow beds, but also among mosses in boggy spruce forests, on decaying conifer trunks in old-growth forests and on moist sandstone rocks in a river canyon under the influence of climatic inversion.