Amanita lesueurii and A. wadjukiorum (Basidiomycota), two new species from Western Australia, and an expanded description of A. fibrillopes

Davison, E.M. , McGurk, L.M. , Bougher, N.L. , Syme, K. & Watkin, E.L. J. Amanita lesueurii and A. wadjukiorum (Basidiomycota), two new species from Western Australia, and an expanded description of A. fibrillopes. Nuytsia 23: 589–606 (2013). Three species of Amanita Pers. are documented from Western Australia. Amanita lesueurii E.M. Davison is described from the mid-west region. It is distinguished by its small to medium fruiting bodies with a white pileus and white universal veil (both of which become vinaceous-buff or grey with age), white gills, short white stipe with a small obconic or turbinate bulb, white partial veil, amyloid, elongate to cylindrical spores, and no clamp connections. Amanita wadjukiorum E.M. Davison is described from the Perth metropolitan area. It has medium to large fruiting bodies with a cream pileus that ages milky coffee to snuff brown, a pale grey or buff universal veil that ages hazel to drab, cream gills, grey to buff stipe with a napiform or fusiform bulb, white to cream to vinaceous-buff partial veil that disappears with age, amyloid, ellipsoid to elongate spores and no clamp connections. Amanita fibrillopes O.K. Mill. , which was previously only known from the type locality, is a widespread but misidentified species. It has small to large fruiting bodies with a pale peach to pale salmon pileus that rapidly ages cream, a white universal veil that rapidly ages buff or milky coffee, white gills that age buff, white or pale pink stipe with a spherical or obconic or tapered bulb, white or buff apical partial veil that disappears with age, inamyloid, ellipsoid to elongate spores and no clamp connections. A BLASTn search has shown that there are no exact matches of the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of each species with those in GenBank. Introduction The genus Amanita Pers. (Agaricales: Amanitaceae) is a large, cosmopolitan and conspicuous part of the fungal flora of many areas. The majority of species are difficult to identify using macroscopic features alone, and microscopic characters such as spore amyloidy, presence of clamp connections, and the microanatomy of the subhymenium and universal veil are very important for identification and constructing diagnostic keys (Bas 1969; Reid 1980; Tulloss 1994; Wood 1997). The genus is divided into two subgenera: subg. Amanita sensu Corner & Bas emend. Bas and subg. Lepidella (E.-J.Gilbert) Veselý emend. Corner & Bas, that are separated by the amyloid reaction of the spores. 590 Nuytsia Vol. 23 (2013) Many species of Amanita occur in Western Australia (Gentilli 1953; Bas 1969; Reid 1980; Miller 1991, 1992). Of these, some have probably not been discovered and several are yet to be formally named. In this paper we describe two new species from Western Australia, one from the mid-west region and another from the Perth metropolitan area. Some named species are difficult to identify with certainty because they were described from a small number of collections or localities, so that the range of variation within each species has not been established. Amanita fibrillopes O.K. Mill. (MycoBank number MB 358174), for example, was described from a single collection (Miller 1991), however it appears to be a widespread but misidentified species. Its protologue describes a small species with inamyloid spores and an aerolate pileus covered with dense, pointed brown warts. Whilst reviewing the Miller types, one of us (EMD) was struck by similarities between A. fibrillopes and a common and widespread species Amanita sp. ‘persicina’ ined. (Bougher 2009), concluding that they were the same. They have similar microanatomy and are similar macroscopically apart from the protologue’s apparent incomplete description of the colours of the pileus and universal veil. Amanita sp. ‘persicina’ has a pale peach or salmon pileus when young, but the colour fades rapidly to buff, and the universal veil darkens with age from white to buff to brown. It appears that the type described by Miller (1991) was a collection of small, old Amanita sp. ‘persicina’. In this paper we provide an expanded description of A. fibrillopes based on a larger number of collections than those studied by Miller (1991). DNA barcodes have become an important identification tool for all organisms. The nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region has been proposed for adoption as the primary fungal barcode marker (Schoch et al. 2012). It has been widely used by mycologists and more than 172,000 fungal ITS sequences are deposited in GenBank. We provide new ITS sequence data for the two new taxa and for A. fibrillopes. Other gene regions provide more resolution in some fungal lineages. The most recent molecular phylogeny of Amanita uses the nuclear and mitochondrial large and small subunits of rRNA gene regions (Wolfe et al. 2012). These regions will provide additional information on relationships in future studies.