Abstract
The small fruitbodies of Chlorosplenium are greenish yellow and mainly grow on woody substrates. The species diversity of the genus in China was investigated based on specimens formerly deposited in the Herbarium Mycologicum Academiae Sinicae as well as new collections gained in recent years. Our phylogenetic results revealed the species diversity of the genus is underestimated and the commonly known Chlorosplenium chlora is a species complex. Based on morphology studies and sequence analyses of three regions (ITS, LSU and RPB1), the Chinese collections represent two new species which are described and illustrated here as C. sinicum and C. sinochlora. Chlorosplenium fusisporum is quite possibly a species of the genus Chlorociboria, and C. hyperici-maculati should be excluded from the genus.
Highlights
Chlorosplenium Fr. is an inoperculate discomycete genus in Helotiales (Leotiomycetes, Ascomycota, Fungi)
Many saprotrophic inoperculate cup-fungi have been placed in Chlorosplenium on the basis of the phenotypic character grayish- to greenish-yellow apothecia, and 57 names were published under the genus (http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/Names.asp)
The phylogenetic trees yielded by Maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) analyses are similar in topology, and the ML tree is presented in Figure 1 with bootstrap values at nodes
Summary
Chlorosplenium Fr. is an inoperculate discomycete genus in Helotiales (Leotiomycetes, Ascomycota, Fungi). It was established in 1849, typified by C. chlora (Schwein.) M.A. Curtis, and originally included three species Only three species were firstly involved, their taxonomic and nomenclatural changes were complicated which were detailed by Dixon in his monographic treatments of the genera Chlorsplenium, Chlorociboria Seaver and Chlorencoelia Dixon [1,2]. Many saprotrophic inoperculate cup-fungi have been placed in Chlorosplenium on the basis of the phenotypic character grayish- to greenish-yellow apothecia, and 57 names were published under the genus (http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/Names.asp (accessed on 15 August 2021)). Many of them are obviously not congeneric with the type species C. chlora, and they were even scattered in 11 different families according to the recent taxonomic treatments [3]. According to the results of multi-locus phylogenetic analysis, the genus appeared as a clade distinct from any other fungal groups, a new family Chlorospleniaceae was proposed [5]
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