RECENT INOCYBACEAE NEWS

Version 4 of the key to Inocybe from eastern North America is here. It includes the addition of several new taxa now confirmed from North America (e.g., I. sphagnophila) and clarification of a few others (viz., I. cicatricata). Version 5 has been posted online at the Long Island Mycological Club (see their Identification Aides). Version 6 is in the works.

Inocybe grammatoides is described as new in a new Fungal Planet series by Esteve-Raventós and colleagues. This species appears to be a warm and humid-loving species recorded from Spain, Italy, and Estonia, mostly with oaks but also with pine. Inocybe grammata, which I consider the same as I. albodisca and I. permucida from eastern North America, is much more widely distributed in northern Europe and eastern North America and associates primarily with conifers like hemlock or birch. Inocybe acriolens is also a member of this group and differs from both I. grammatoides and I. grammata by the non-bulbous even stipe. Inocybe acriolens is a conifer associate with spruce and fir.

A review (pdf here) of the Australian Inocybaceae monograph can be found in FUNGI Vol. 12:2 by Steve Trudell.

Two new species of Inocybe are described as new in one of these recent very large multi-authored taxonomic papers, a practice that seems to be trending these days. One - I. elata - is from China and may be most closely related to the I. stellata group, which is dominated by a large number of Old World tropical species. The second - I. himalayensis - is from Pakistan and is nested in the I. rimosa complex. The overall work was published in the journal Sydowia.

Tolgor and Yu-Guang have produced a new study that describes three new species of Inocybe sect. Rimosae Two of the species occur in the Pseudosperm clade, one near I. perlata and allies, and the other is nested in the I. rimosa complex. The third species occurs in the Inosperma clade near I. maculata. The work can be found here.

Two species - Inocybe glabripes and I. hystrix are reported from southwest Asia in this study published here. Inocybe hystrix is pretty rare in North America. We only see it at very high elevations in the spruce-fir zone in the Southern Appalachians mixed with birch. An earlier published reference by Greg Mueller and Roy Halling to this species from Costa Rica under Qerucus at high elevations likely represents a novel species.

Bandini and numerous colleagues have a new study out now here describing five new species of Inocybe (subg. Inocybe), three species with smooth spores and two with nodulose spores. Inocybe stenospora is confirmed as an apleurocystidiate species of Inocybe in the I. languinosa group, not subg. Mallocybe as earlier thought.

Inocybe curvipes and I. sororia are reported from this study done in northern India. However, I’m not convinced these species are identified correctly.

A new revision of the Inocye mixtilis group has now been published here. The work, by Esteve-Raventos, Bandini, and colleagues, reveals six species overall in the group, four of which are described as new. Turns out we don’t have I. mixtilis after all in North America but do have two new species - I. ceskae and I. occulta. Inocybe mixtilis appears to be restricted to Eurasia. Inocybe occulta is the precise name for I. mixtilis that is found in pine plantations in Australia. With respect to North American specimens of “I. mixtilis”, we can now state with confidence that I. occulta occurs in Mexico at high-elevations under a mixture of fir, pine, and oak and in Nova Scotia under hemlock and hardwoods. So, this is one widespread species! Two, we can confirm the presence of I. ceskae also in Nova Scotia and under planted Douglas fir in France.

Egon Horak has published a new accounting of Inocybe in New Zealand in Fungi of New Zealand Vol. 6. 43 species of Inocybe overall are recorded in association with Kunzea, Leptospermum, and/or Nothofagus with 19 of these described as new. This raises the number of newly described Inocybe from the southern hemisphere to 121 species over the past two years alone.

Felipe Wartchow has described a new Brazilian species of Inocybe - I. lepidosparta - from tropical montane forest. The species is characterized in part by nodulose basidiospores, large pleurocystidia, and absence of caulocystidia. It is described as a short communication in the New Zealand Journal of Botany.

My revision of the Inocybe lilacina group is now in Mycologia. The common form that is primarily northern in distribution in North America is I. pallidicremea described by Grund & D.E. Stuntz from Nova Scotia. It occurs under conifers. Inocybe lilacina in the strict sense is known thus far from New York, North Carolina, and Tennessee. It’s a little dark violet thing that we find in pure hardwood stands (oak-hickory forest mixed with beech), as well as in mixed forests in western North Carolina. These match the type described by Peck from New York! Inocybe ionocephala is a robust species in the group with less pronounced lilac pigments from the coastal redwood zone in northern California. Inocybe sublilacina is described for what is a semi-cryptic species from Nova Scotia and Colorado with slightly larger spores than I. pallidicremea and I. lilacina.

Two new taxa from Italy have been described by Bizio and Castellan. One of these is a member of the I. lanatodisca / I. maculata f. fulva consortium and is named I. acutofulva. The other is a new variety of I. grammopodia - I. grammapodia var. paleoveneta. You can read about these (in Italian) here.

Replacement names have been produced for two Australian species, I. fibrillosipes and I. mallocyboides, described by Neale Bougher and myself due to an earlier publication using the same names by Ludwig on European Inocybe. The two new names are I. austrofibrillosipes and I. fulvotomentosa. The paper is available as open access with Mycotaxon. A pdf can be found here.

The first genome of Inocybaceae has been released and is the subject of a new paper by Bahram and colleagues in Martin Ryberg’s lab in Uppsala, Sweden. The genome is from Inocybe terrigena (type of subg. Mallocybe). The work confirms the independent origin of the ectomycorrhizal habit in Inocybaceae and details the diverse microbiome of I. terrigena, important symbionts in fungal tissues.

Another paper on the Inocybe praetervisa group is out in the journal Mycoscience by Larsson and colleagues. Here four species are documented, three confirmed in North America that differ by ecological features and spore size - I. praetervisa, I. rivularis, and I. favrei (=I. taxocystis). A preprint version of the work can be found here.

Inocybe lemmi is a newly described European alpine species with oblong and  indistinctly nodulose basidiospores that is closely related to a species Brad Kropp and I described from Arizona, I. candidipes. Both speces share affinities to the artificial group, section Marginatae of Inocybe. You can read about this work by Larsson and colleagues here.

Latha and Manimohan have produced an online e-book titled “Inocybes of Kerala”, a taxonomic and molecular systematic treatment of 30 species of Inocybaceae from a tropical region of India, 12 of which are described as new. These are are fungi that principally associate with tropical Dipterocarpaceae and a few with Fabaceae. Overall, the diversity in the area is more or less on par with what we see in the Neotropics.

A lot of work is coming out of India and Pakistan as of late. Naseer and colleagues add to this work by describing a new species, I. shawarensis, in the Inosperma clade from high-elevation under Quercus in Pakistan. The species turns out to be closely related to the European I. quietiodor.

In another Indian work, this also from Kerala, Latha and Manimohan described three new Inocybe species in the Pseudosperma clade. These species were described in one of those large multi-authored papers “Fungal diversity notes 491-602” in Fungal Diversity. A pdf of the Inocybe descriptions can be found here. Thanks to Deepna Latha for sharing this.

This is a cool toxicological study I just stumbled across by Sailatha et al. that demonstrate very high concentrations of muscarine in basidiomes of the tropical Indian species, Inocybe virosa, a member of the Inosperma clade. The name I. virosa was recently validated in our work by Pradeep et al. (2016) on Inocybe from tropical India published in Mycological Progress (scroll down below).

A new species, I. tiliae, in the artificial grouping of section Marginatae is described as new from northern Italy by Franci and colleagues. As the name suggests this is a Tilia associate. In Knoxville we find a few Inocybe and Russula species under planted Tilia or Basswood that also occur under planted Quercus. You can read about the work, most of it in Italian, here.

Another 2016 study, this one published in Nova Hedwigia by Meza-Meneses et al., documents a population/species in the I. tomentosa complex of the Mallocybe clade in Mexico (pdf here). The species in this work is closely related to one I’m aware of in Knoxville that fruits by the 100s on limestone soil and another population in Quebec. Extremely little is known about the diversity of Inocybe and allies in Mexico. Work there is based on a few scattered publications and one floristic treatment since the 1960s.

More work from Kerala in India by Latha and Manimohan (published in Mycologia 2016; pdf here) describes five new species of Inocybe that associate with Dipterocarpaceae. Several of these are close relatives to I. torresiae (see photo above) that Neale Bougher and I described a few years ago from northern parts of Australia. Two of these species - I. wayanadensis and I. keralensis - have nomenclatural priority over two Indian species of mine described as new a few months later - I. albonitens and I. rimulosa, respectively.

A nicely detailed piece of work documents the description of a new central European species that also occurs in eastern North America: Inocybe spaghnophila. In addition, the species I. pseudoumbrina is found to be a later heterotypic synonomy of I. assimiata. Stuntz referred to these species as part of the greater I. umbrina group. The authors here refer to this group as subsection Napipedinae. More than 450 species of Inocybe are now recognized from central Europe based on morphological and phylogenetic determinations. A pdf of the work is here.

A new species with short pleurocystidia and smooth spores has been described in association with Quercus from Spain. It is called I. parvicystis, and its description can be found here.

Version 3 of my key to eastern North American Inocybe is here. Working on version 4.

Fernando Esteve-Raventos and colleagues have published a new paper (here) on finally untangling species in the Inocybe praetervisa group. Turns out what many have been referring to as I. praetervisa is actually his rather cosmopolitan species I. phaeocystidiosa. Inocybe praetervisa does indeed occur in North America (based on some Canadian ITS sequences), but the concept of this species is that of I. rivularis. The only thing this work lacks is a key!

A new paper is out by Bizio and colleagues that describes a new smooth-spored species of Inocybe, I. costiniti, from pine forests in Croatia. You can read about it here.

Vauras and Larsson have published two new species of Inocybe with smooth spores and entirely pruinose stipes from the Baltic Sea region. The work is out in Karstenia and can be found here.

I have written an unpublished draft version (v2) of a taxonomic key to species of Inocybe from eastern North America, including Central America and the Caribbean Basin. A pdf of the key can be found here (note that it is not strictly dichotomous). The treatment currently includes 198 taxa. Funding from the Daniel Stuntz Memorial Foundation will be used to barcode Stuntz’ collections cited in his works, including his type collections. Around 15 of his types have been sequenced, the molecular data of which are available on GenBank. The results from the revision of the Stuntz collection (and ideally those of Grund as well at ACAD) will likely influence the current taxonomic status of species included in the key. For those who use the key, I would appreciate any feedback, suggestions, notes on omissions, and errors.                                                         

Two new species with nodulose spores and entirely pruinose stipes with bulbous bases, classified in the artificial section Marginatae, are presented in this work from northern Europe by Larsson and Vauras.

Esteve-Raventos and colleagues have a new paper out documenting in more detail a recently described boreal species, I. bufonia, in Spain.

Deepna Latha has produced another paper settling the taxonomy of a tropical species in the Inosperma clade. I was aware of this unidentified species in my prior works, and it appeared as a constituent in one of two old world clades that form a paraphyletic group, from which the north and south temperate lineages of Inosperma arose. Here, the species is formally described as I. gregaria and discussed in detail.

A recent collaboration with P. Manimohan’s research group in Kerala, India resulted in an important publication led by K.P. Deepna Latha that brings new light on the most enigmatic lineage of Inocybaceae: the Nothocybe clade. Here, Deepna Latha clarifies the taxonomy of the sole species known in this lineage, which is described as new, I. distincta. Discussion of I. cutifracta is presented due to varying interpretations of what this species represents.

I also recently collaborated with a different Indian research group led by C.K. Pradeep to produce a paper that features eleven species of Inocybe from Kerala state in a tropical region of India. Of the eleven species, seven are described as new. In addition, the name I. virosa is validated. The work was published in Mycological Progress and can be found here.

Prylutskyi has produced a floristic treatment that documents 16 species of Inocybe from Ukraine. The work can be found here.

A new species from Pakistan was published in 2016 by Jabeen and colleagues and named I. kohistanensis, a species in the I. oblectabiis group.

Here’s an older paper I missed placing here that describes a new species of Tubariomyces (T. similis) from Italy (pdf here). Tubariomyces is an unusual genus that is known only from Mediterranean parts of Europe, Zambia in Africa, and northern Australia. Species of Tubariomyces are generally quite small and resemble those of the Mallocybe clade, however, the stipe surfaces of Tubariomyces are pruinose their entire lengths.

A report of four species of Inocybe “off the beaten track” in France was published in 2014 by Patrice Laine. These include the American I. subdecurrens, I. pholiotinoides (which looks way cool), I. nemorosa, and I. leucoloma discovered outside its typical alpine habitat. A pdf of this work can be found here.

Jacobsson and Larsson have described a new species, Inocybe granulosa, of the Mallocybe clade in the I. dulcamara group from upper boreal and subalpine zones with Salix in Sweden and Norway. The species is characterized in part by its scaly floccose pileus surface, granular to floccose stipe surface, and autonomous phylogenetic position near I. agardhii and several other species. The species was described in a massive article containing description of 100 new species of fungi in Fungal Diversity. A pdf of the Inocybe description only can be found here.

Taxonomic work on Inocybe is coming out of tropical India in two papers by K.P. Deepna Latha. The first of these describes a new species in the Pseudosperma clade, Inocybe griseorubida, of the I. rimosa complex. This new species associates probably with Vateria indica of the Dipterocarpaceae. The work was published in Phytotaxa and can be found here. The second is currently in press at Mycologia and presents five new species of Inocybe again from tropical India.

A fascinating result was published by Hayward and colleagues in a paper in New Phytologist that suggests a native Nothofagus-associate of Inocybe is capable of forming ectomycorrhiza with introduced Pinaceae in Patagonia, Argentina.

Two species of Inocybe, I. littoralis and I. xerophytica, have been confirmed as fungal root symbionts of a small Polygonaceae tree, Coccoloba uvifera (also known as Seagrape. These species are reported from the Caribbean Basin. The work appears in the journal Mycorrhiza.

Another Mycorrhiza paper characterizes seven Inocybe ectomycorrhizal morphotypes on Populus, Salix, and Pinus from semiarid woody steppe in Hungary. DNA data were used to confirm identifications. Among the species found were I. phaeoleuca, I. psammophila, I. semifulva (described originally from Nova Scotia by Grund and Stuntz), I. splendens, and I. subporospora. Two of the seven species could not be readily identified. The authors were able to confirm identification of I. semifulva due to our ability to sequence the ITS and nLSU regions of the isotype collection.

Egon Horak, Dennis Desjardin, and I have published a work reporting 25 species of Inocybe from Thailand and Malaysia (see publications page for the pdf of the article). 13 species are described as new.

Esteve-Raventós makes a nice and useful contribution to Inocybe systematics by clarifying several species concepts in the I. xanthomelas group. In this work a new species, I. flavobrunnescens is described in association with Quercus in Portugal. Results from the study can be found here.

Two recent independent studies report on some species of Inocybe new to Morocco. The first, by Ouabbou and colleagues, documents several nodulose-spored species, one of which, I. rhodella, is reported under Quercus. This is rather surprising as I. rhodella is a species I described from Guyana. In any case, a pdf of the article can be found here. A second paper by Al Akil and colleagues reports two smooth-spored species from Morocco. A pdf of this paper can be found here.

Fernando Esteve-Raventós and Gabriel Moreno have published a new species, Inocybe lanatopurpurea, that is distinguished by presence of a heavy woolly veil, scaly purple brown to dark purple gray pileus, smooth spores, narrow pleurocystidia, and absence of or very few caulocystidia. The species is recorded from Spain in conifer forests including pine and from Estonia in association with European aspen. Based on ITS blast results this new species is closely related to an unclarified species recorded from the Pacific Northwest. A pdf of the description of I. lanatopurpurea can be found here as part of the Fungal Planet series published in the journal Persoonia.

Fan and Bau have just described a new lilac-stiped species from tropical China, Inocybe hainanensis, which is most closely related to a species Neale Bougher and I described from Australia nearly ten years ago, I. violaceocaulis.

Oertel and colleagues document two Finnish species, Inocybe urceolicystis and I. ericetorum, in Germany. Their paper can be found here.

Work by Ellen Larsson, Jukka Vauras, and Cathy Cripps has resulted in a huge clarification of species in the Inocybe leiocephala complex. In the past I. leiocephala (western N.A.) and I. subbrunnea (Europe) have been considered synonyms of a species described by Singer from Spain, I. catalaunica. This recent work, however, supports the separation of these species as well as recognition of several others in the complex or that are morphologically similar. You can read about it here.

A new paper by Oertel, Bandini, and Vauras is out documenting two Finnish species now recorded from Germany. Zwei aus Finnland bescriebene Risspilze in Deutschland nachgeweisen: Inocybe urceolicystis Stangl & Vauras und Inocybe ericeotorum Vauras & Kokkonen. The paper was published in Zeitschrift für Mykologie 80(1): 43-79. I hope to get a pdf of the article soon. Thanks to Michal Miksik for the tip.

Four rare or noteworthy species of Inocybe have been featured recently from Italy in a new paper by Bizio & Ferisin in Bollettiino del Centro Micologico Friulano. The treatment includes presentation and discussion of I. mimica, I. pseudoreducta, I. cf. piceae, and I. xanthomelas. A pdf of the article can be found here.

A new species in sect. Rimosae--Inocybe aureocitinra--has been described in this paper from Mediterranean evergreen oaks in Spain by Fernando Esteve-Raventós.

Neale Bougher and I have cracked the 100 species number in our draft of Fungi of Australia: Inocybaceae. We’ll be busy completing the book the first half of 2014 before sending it to the publisher.

Bernard Moyersoen has recently published a book chapter on ECM fungal diversity associated with Pakaraimaea dipterocarpacea (family Dipterocarpaceae) in Venezuela. I mention this here because two of the more common ECM fungal species associated with Pakaraimaea are species of Inocybe. Both are also reported to co-occur with species of Aldina, an ECM plant genus of the Fabaceae. His figure 2a/b shows some impressive and beautiful close-up shots of an inocyboid ECM root tip on Pakaraimaea and hyphal clamp connections typical of Inocybe rhizomorphs associated with ECM roots. The two Inocybe species discussed are most closely related to other species in northern South America associated with the tree host Dicymbe and/or Aldina; these include I. amazoniensis, I. epidendron, and I. pulchella.

Brandon’s interview with Joel Horman of the Long Island Mycological Club is out in their winter bulletin. Inocybe, Inocybe, and Inocybe (you guessed it) is the theme. Discussion of Inocybe unicolor (=I. caesariata senus Amer. auct.) is one of the main themes.

Yu-Guang Fan and Tolgor Bau have published a new species from Yunnan Province in China called Inocybe caroticolor (pdf here), which largely associates with Quercus and rarely Pinus. The new species is carrot colored, hence the epithet, has nodulose spores, caulocystidia descending the entire length of the stipe, and an aromatic odor. The species resembles I. bresadolae somewhat. The authors also report a species originally described from Papua New Guinea, I. olivaceonigra, from Yunnan Castanopsis forests. The type from PNG was also recored with Castanopsis. This latter species is most closely related to I. umbratica (=I. suaveolens). Kudos to the authors for producing ITS data from their collections.

Here’s a paper I missed that was published in 2010 in Nova Hedwigia (pdf here). The paper is by Takahito Kobayashi and Seishi Onishi and describes a new species from Japan, Inocybe sericella. This new species reminds me in outward aspects to some collections I made in Queensland, Australia. Inocybe sericella features large nodulose spores, a cortina, and metuloids descending the upper half of the stipe. The type was recorded under Quercus and Prunus.

A new two-spored species, Inocybe miyiensis, has been described from China by Yu-guang Fan and Tolgor Bau.

The species has an entirely pruinose stipe and nodulose spores. The paper was published in Nova Hedwigia and titled “Inocybe miyiensis, a new two-spored species in section Marginatae from China”. Michal strikes again!

Three species of section Rimosae sensu lato are documented from Spain in this new paper published by Roberto Fernandez Sasia. The paper treats I. perlata, I. obsoleta (Pseudosperma clade), and the somewhat enigmatic, at least to me, I. rhodiola (Maculata clade). Excellent photographs are presented of fruit bodies in the field and anatomic features. Thanks to Michal Miksik, of the Czech Mycological Society, for bringing this to my attention!

A new species of Inocybe has been described from southwest France, I. chlorochroa Corriol & Guinberteau. It’s a species probably closely related to members of the I. maculata complex. Inocybe chlorochroa is distinguished by the heavy patches of white velipellis, yellowish stipe, yellow to subpallid lamellae, and smaller and narrower spores. The new species is described in: Corriol G, Guinberteau J (2013) Revista micologica “Errotari” 10: 45-51. “Un nuevo Inocybe de los valles atlanticos del suroeste de Francia.

Katri Kokkonen and Jukka Vauras have published an extensive work (pdf here) in Mycological Progress that documents eleven new boreal species of Inocybe with nodulose spores. The work is particularly noteworthy because it also includes a key to numerous species of Inocybe with nodulose-spores and that possess a cortina (or lack caulocystidia below the stipe apex)--section Inocybe sensu Singer. Each of the new species descriptions contains the typical high-quality line art and splendid (and taxonomically helpful) color photos that Vauras is known for. It’s a must piece of work for those interested to sort through species in this artificial group in the north temperate zone.

Fan Yu-Guang and colleagues, Bau Tolgor and Takahito Kobayashi, have produced an article in Mycosystema documenting three species of Inocybe from northeast China (I. cervicolor, I. geophylla var. violacea, and I. pachypleura). While some taxonomic progress has been made on species of Inocybe from Japan, very little is known about the Chinese flora. Following is a link to the pdf.

Bohumil Busek, a Czech amateur mycologist, published this past year a thorough taxonomic description for the rarely found Inocybe furfurea v. rufotacta in the Czech Republic. His paper, published in Mykologicky Sborník, can be found here.

Although not recent, I do wish to highlight a paper published by Jacques Poirier (Notes sur le genre Inocybe - 1. Documents mycologiques 31(124)3-13. 2002), in which he describes three new species from France: I. sulfovirescens, I. obscuromellea, and I. griseotarda. I mention this 2002 paper here because of Poirier’s use of sulfoformol as a macrochemical agent in Inocybaceae systematics. He reports a rapid green reaction to sulfoformol among species related to I. subnudipes. Of course, I. subnudipes is closely related, in our best estimation, to I. chondroderma, which has a unique turquoise reaction to PDAB. Many thanks to Pierre-Arthur Moreau for providing us with this paper.

Esteve-Raventós and colleagues have documented a rather rarely reported species, I. urbana Allesio, for the first time from Spain. This is a species with angular-nodulose spores. You can read about this report here.

Our long-distance friend, Fernando Esteve-Raventós, has described a new species from the Iberian Peninsula, Inocybe neorufula. Apparently the species was described by Malençon but later validated by Allesio. Unfortunately, Allesio’s concept of the species is not that of Malençon, so a new species is required for Malençon’s original invalid species. A pdf of the article can be found here.

The ABRS (Australian Biological Resources Study) funded project has reached its half-way point. The goal of this project is to produce a monographic revision of Inocybaceae in Australia as part of the Fungi of Australia series. Several hundred vouchered collections have been examined to date and sequenced to provide morphological and genetic data to aid species circumscriptions. To date, we have produced draft descriptions, line art, field photos, and phylogenetic data for 39 species from Australia, 23 of which will be described as new. Neale Bougher, the PI of this project, and I anticipate perhaps as many as 60 species will be featured in the volume.

Brad Kropp, Leonard Hutchison, and I have a paper coming out soon in the journal Mycologia that describes five new species in section Rimosae sensu stricto (Pseudosperma clade) from Utah and other western states. One common widespread species (I. lanatodisca) is documented from North America, Central America, and Europe. In total this analysis suggests that ca. 50 species can be recognized using phylogenetic species recognition criteria in each of the Pseudosperma and Inosperma clades. Such a large number of species in the Inosperma clade was not anticipated.

Collections of Inocybe and samples of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) root tips made by Terry Henkel, Cathie Aime, and Matt Smith from Dicymbe-Aldina forests in Guyana were used to produce a recently published paper in the journal Kurtziana, in which five new species of Inocybe were described as new. Overall, this raises the known number of Inocybe species from Guyana to eleven. However, an additional eight species were detected on ECM root tips of fabaceous plants that could not be matched to vouchered-specimens. This suggests the overall taxonomic diversity of Inocybe in Guyana includes ca. 20 species. Brandon is the lead author of this work.

Lorelei Norvell, a former undergraduate student, Emily Giles (now a research technician in Saudia Arabia), and I have published a new paper describing a new species of Inocybe in the Pacific Northwest with a unique PDAB reaction. For a number of years the taxonomic identity of this species eluded us. After a while we became comfortable with applying a manuscript name proposed by the late D.E. Stuntz, I. chondroderma, to  this species. We were able to confirm our morphological identification with molecular annotations of materials actually collected and identified by Stuntz some years ago. Without experience and the diagnostic PDAB test, field identification of the species can be tricky. Up to ten different names have been ascribed to the species on GenBank. The paper describing I. chondroderma is forthcoming in the journal Mycologia.

Jukka Vauras and Ellen Larsson (see Karstenia 51: 31-36) have described a new species in the Inocybe dulcamara comples: I. myriadophila, which is characterized by crowded lamellae and preference for calcareous soil. It is described from Finland and Sweden. This was actually an AFTOL species from several years back, for which we now have numerous gene sequence data but went under the name of I. dulcamara. A pdf of the paper can be found here.

Neale, Gen Gates, and I have published a new paper documenting several new species and other reports of Inocybe from temperae and tropical regions of Australia. This is out in Nuytsia as well (see publications page). One noteworthy species from this bunch is I. torresiae, based on a type collection from the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia and collected by a collaborator of ours, Matt Barrett. On our recent trip to Queensland in Feb-Mar 2012, I. torresiae proved to be the most commonly encountered species of Inocybe! Neale has noticed some differences in spore morphology between the western and eastern collections. We’ll see what their DNA tells us as we get eastern forms sequenced.

Neale Bougher and I just published a paper in the journal Nuytsia (published by the Western Australian state herbarium) that reports two previously unrecognized introduced species of Inocybe in Western Australia: I. curvipes and I. rufuloides. A pdf of the article can be found on the lab publications page. Several other species of Inocybe have been introduced to Australia including I. sindonia and a member of the I. cincinnata group, possibly close to I. pusio.

Cathy Cripps, Ellen Larsson, and Egon Horak published a new paper that reports six Mallocybe taxa from alpine habitats in western North America. Several of these species are reported from the United States for the first time. The paper is particularly noteworthy in that several types of Robert Kuehner and Jules Favre (species originally described from alpine habitats in France and Switzerland) were sequenced for comparison or confirmation. The paper is freely available online at the North American Fungi website.

I have a new paper (see Publications page) in Kew Bulletin with C.K. Pradeep and other Indian colleagues that describes a new species of Auritella, A. foveata, from lowland tropical dipterocarp forests in India. This is an important discovery because Auritella now has a biogeographical distribution in subcontinental India, tropical Africa, and temperate Australia. Auritella foveata is sister to the rest of the genus based on molecular phylogenetic work we performed. The specific epithet ‘foveata’ refers to the pitted surface of the pileus (cap), a highly unusual trait for the Inocybaceae.

New work out of Norway indicates that Inocybe is an important ECM partner of the perennial herbaceous arctic and alpine plant, Dryas octopetala, a member of the Rosaceae. This was known for some European species of Inocybe, but what’s interesting about this paper is that ECM fungal diversity on Dryas octopetala does not decline at high latitudes. A link to the pdf of this article is here.

Additional work out of Norway by Liebel and Gebauer confirms that the achlorphyllous ghost orchid, Epipogium aphyllum, obtains carbon and nitrogen from primarily ectomycorrhizal species of Inocybe and Hebeloma. Prior work by Roy et al. (see below) had provided molecular evidence for this tripartite relationship between an epiparastic, mycoheterotrophic orchid, ECM fungi, and the ECM plant partners. Abstract here.

Pablo Alvarado, myself, and Pablo’s advisor, Francisco Esteve-Raventos have transferred the mediterranean species Inocybe inexpectata to a new genus, Tubariomyces. Three other species are also referred to, two of which are mediterranean and the other a member of the miombo woodland mycota of Zambia in Africa. A pdf of the article can be found here.

Penny Cullington has a new fungal profile in print in Field Mycology for Inocybe muricellata Bres., a species encountered in Europe but not well known in North America. This short portrait includes a useful color photograph and microphotograph plus a description of material from the U.K. In North America Kauffman did not treat I. muricellata in his 1924 monograph but refers to what may be two closely related species, I. submuricellata Atk. and I. ochraceomarginata C. H. Kauffman. Grund and Stuntz likewise did not treat I. muricellata among their numerous papers documenting species of Inocybe from Nova Scotia and/or the Pacific Northwest. Nishida (1989) records I. muricellata from southern California in an article that appeared in Mycotaxon 34:181-186.

Brad Kropp and Steven Albee-Scott have described a new nodulose-spored species of Inocybe (I. tauensis) from the island of Ta’u of American Somoa in the tropics of the South Pacific Ocean. The article was published in the journal Fungal Biology. Inocybe tauensis is probably a symbiont of Pisonia grandis (Nyctaginaceae) under which I. tauensis occurs. Phylogenetically, this new species of Inocybe is most closely related to a paleotropical species from Zambia, I. conspicuospora, and nests in a clade of two undescribed tropical species from Zambia and the Kimberley in Australia. A pdf of the new article can be found here.

A revision of Australian types of Inocybaceae has been published in Muelleria, an in-house journal produced by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. This study designates five lectotypes, proposes one new name, and supports designation of three species of Inocybe in other genera (Cortinarius, Pholiota). A key to the 17 known species of Inocybaceae from Australia is provided along with illustrations. Efforts to provide formal descriptions of numerous undescribed taxa are underway,

Martin Ryberg and colleagues (in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 55(2): 431-442) have published an evolutionary assessment of the Inocybaceae, a study in which numerous European exemplars are included using nLSU, ITS2, and mtSSU data. Using ancestral reconstruction methods, support was found for the taxonomic potential of spore shape and mode of development (presence of a cortina) and that angiosperms were likely ancestral hosts for the family. The latter reinforces an earlier finding by Matheny et al. (2009) JBI. Sectional level taxonomy was found clearly to be in need of revision, which echoes prior studies using different molecular datasets.

Inocybe inexpectata, I. pseudoasterospora, and I. dunensis are reported from a Quercus stand in the region of La Bureba (Burgos) in northern Spain. Abstract here.

Kropp and colleagues have described two new species of Inocybe from western North America--I. monticola and I. praecox, two smooth-spored species that lack a cortina. Section Splendentes and supersection “Marginatae” are found not to be monophyletic. The paper was just published in Mycologia. A pdf can be found on the Publications page.

Jukka Vauras and Katri Kokkonen have published a new nodulose-spored species, I. saliceticola, from Finland and placed in synonymy I. ochracea and I. alnea. Apparently, I. alnea will have priority over I. ochracea. A pdf of the paper can be found here. 

Ellen Larsson and colleagues have published in Persoonia an assessment of species in section Rimosae from northern Europe (pdf here). This is a nice publication that correlates morphological and ecological differences with phylogenetic differences using ribosomal RNA sequences. These results will now enable North American workers to proceed to uncover taxonomic novelties or discover widely dispersed species of clades Maculata and sect. Rimosae s. str. (=Pseudosperma clade).

Stig Jacobsson and Ellen Larsson have published a new species of Inocybe--I. spuria--that occurs in Europe and western North America. The new species had been previously considered to represent I. squamata J.E. Lange, but I. squamata differs by slightly larger spores and its phylogenetic placement elsewhere in the Pseudosperma clade (=section Rimosae s. str.). In North America I. spuria has been confirmed by sequence identity to occur in Utah (where it associates with Picea, Abies, and Populus in montane regions) and British Columbia, where it is only known by environmental ITS sequences.

A new article in Clinical Toxicology by Yael Lurie and colleagues reports case studies of muscarine poisoning by Inocybe fastigiata, I. geophylla, and I. patouillardii in 14 patients ostensibly from Israel. Inocybe fastigiata is more widely known as I. rimosa (though I. rimosa is highly polyphyletic), and I. patouillardii is now known as I. erubescens. Incidentally, I. geophylla is also not monophyletic. In any case, all patients recovered after atropine therapy.

Neale Bougher and I just submitted a taxonomic revision of types of Inocybe from Australia. This effort represents the first comprehensive treatment of Australian species of Inocybe. An identification key to described species of Inocybaceae from Australia can be found here.

McIlvainea, a journal for North American amateur mycology, will publish an article by me on a phylogenetic classification of the Inocybaceae. The PDF for the paper is accessible from the Publications page.

A new paper is out in Mycoscience by Takahito Kobayashi in which three new species of Inocybe are described from Japan. PDF here.

Martin Ryberg has published his PhD thesis titled “An evolutionary view of the taxonomy and ecology of Inocybe (Agaricales), Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

A new paper by Melanie Roy and colleagues reports that 75% of all investigated Epipogium aphyllum, a Eurasian achlorophyllous orchid, are exclusive symbionts of ectomycorrhizal Inocybe species. The Inocybe species involved are quite diverse and appear to be members of the Inocybe sensu stricto clade and the Mallocybe clade. See here for the abstract.

A paper on the historical biogeography and diversification of the Inocybaceae has been published in the Journal of Biogeography in March 2009. Here’s a link to the abstract of the paper. Unfortunately, I cannot post a PDF. If you email me, I’d be happy to discuss how you can obtain a copy. This paper would not have been possible without numerous colleagues who kindly shared materials from many cool places across the globe.

See here for an abstract that reports a novel lectin in Inocybe umbrinella by JK Zhao and colleagues.

Another article went to press this fall that documents the taxonomy, phylogeny, and distribution of a rarely collected eastern North American species of Inocybe: I. tubarioides Atk. I co-wrote this with Pierre-Arthur Moreau at Lille University in France.

This paper by Martin Ryberg and colleagues in Ellen Larsson’s lab has really helped community ecologists and taxonomists to identify  unknown environmental isolates and insufficiently identified species of Inocybe using ITS data based on development of a database of ITS sequences of northern European species of Inocybe. Despite detailed taxonomic coverage of Friesian and other nordic species, only roughly one-third of insufficiently identified species of Inocybe on GenBank could be cross-referenced with confidence.

Brandon is also in the process of writing a paper on “A phylogenetic classification of the Inocybaceae” for the North American amateur journal McIlvainea, which is really quite a nice publication produced once a year. This year McIlvainea is edited by Mike Beug.

Inocybe subferruginea, described from Western Australia in Matheny & Bougher (2017), is shown here occurring under Kunzea in New Zealand. This is the first report of this species in New Zealand.

Inocybe torresiae, a new species described in 2012 from tropical regions of northern Australia. See reference to the Nuytsia article below by Bougher et al.