Heliocybe

Heliocybe
Heliocybe sulcata
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Basidiomycota
Class:	Agaricomycetes
Order:	Gloeophyllales
Family:	Gloeophyllaceae
Genus:	Heliocybe Redhead & Ginns (1985)
Type species
Heliocybe sulcata (Berk.) Redhead & Ginns (1985)

Heliocybe is an agaric genus[1] closely allied to Neolentinus and the bracket fungus, Gloeophyllum, all of which cause brown rot of wood.[2][3] Heliocybe sulcata is the type and sole species.

Description

Heliocybe sulcata is characterized by thumb-sized, tough, revivable, often dried, mushroom fruitbodies. The tanned symmetric cap (pileus) is up to 2 centimetres (3⁄4 in) across and radially cracked into a ray pattern of scales and ridges. The lamellae are cream-coloured,[4] distant and serrated. The stipe is cylindrical, up to 2 cm tall and 4 mm wide, sometimes curved, and scaly towards the base, often enlarged.[4]

Like Neolentinus, H. sulcata produces abundant, conspicuous pleurocystidia, but H. sulcata lacks clamp connections.[1] Crinipellis zonata lacks the raised ridges along the margin.[4]

Taxonomy

In older classifications, H. sulcata[5] was known as Lentinus sulcatus or Panus fulvidus. However, there is strong phylogenetic evidence for the segregation of a group of brown rot causing fungi at the level of order, including Neolentinus, Heliocybe and Gloeophyllum, from the Polyporales where Lentinus and Panus are classified.[2][3][6][7][8] Heliocybe has also been placed into synonymy with Neolentinus, but anatomically they differ by the absence versus the presence of clamp connections[1] and phylogenetically Heliocybe is distinct, being either a sister group to Neolentinus or to a Neolentinus-Gloeophyllum-clade, or allied to Gloeophyllum odoratum.[2][3][7][8]

Etymology

Heliocybe derives from the Greek helios (= the sun) and cybe (=head), and means "the sun-head". It was coined in reference to its sun-like pattern on its pileus together with its affinity to sun-baked habitats.^[citation needed]

Habitat and distribution

Heliocybe sulcata typically fruits on decorticated, sun-dried and cracked wood, such as fence posts and rails, vineyard trellises in Europe, branches in slash areas, and semi-arid areas such on sagebrush or on naio branches in rain shadow areas of Hawaii, or in open pine forests.[9][10][11][12]

In North America, it can be found in the Mountain states and as far east as Texas and Kansas from April to September.[4]

References

1. Redhead, S.A.; Ginns, J.H. (1985). "A reappraisal of agaric genera associated with brown rots of wood". Trans. Mycol. Soc. Japan. 26: 349–381.
2. Thorn, R.G.; et al. (2000). "Phylogenetic analyses and the distribution of nematophagy support monophyletic Pleurotaceae within the polyphyletic pleurotoid-lentinoid fungi". Mycologia. 92 (2). Mycologia, Vol. 92, No. 2: 241–252. doi:10.2307/3761557. JSTOR 3761557.
3. Hibbett, D.S.; Donoghue, M.J. (2001). "Analysis of character correlations among wood decay mechanisms, mating systems, and substrate ranges in Homobasidiomycetes". Syst. Biol. 50 (2): 215–242. doi:10.1080/10635150151125879. PMID 12116929.
4. Audubon (2023). Mushrooms of North America. Knopf. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-593-31998-7.
5. https://web.archive.org/web/20071010102253/http://www.minnesotamushrooms.org/news/2004-02/mush-science.htm
6. Hibbett, D.S.; Binder, M. (2002). "Evolution of complex fruiting-body morphologies in homobasidiomycetes". Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 269 (1504): 1963–1969. doi:10.1098/rspb.2002.2123. PMC 1691125. PMID 12396494.
7. Binder, M.; et al. (2005). "The phylogenetic distribution of resupinate forms across the major clades of mushroom-forming fungi (Homobasidiomycetes)". Syst. Biodivers. 3 (2): 113–157. doi:10.1017/S1477200005001623. S2CID 13102957.
8. García-Sandoval R; Wang Z; Binder M; Hibbett DS. (2011). "Molecular phylogenetics of the Gloeophyllales and relative ages of clades of Agaricomycotina producing a brown rot". Mycologia. 103 (3): 510–524. doi:10.3852/10-209. PMID 21186327. S2CID 9801943.
9. Redhead, S.A. (1989). "A biogeographical overview of the Canadian mushroom flora". Can. J. Bot. 67 (10): 3003–3062. doi:10.1139/b89-384.
10. Schalkwijk-Barendsen, H.M.E. (1991), Mushrooms of western Canada
11. Evenson, V.S. (1997), Mushrooms of Colorado and the southern Rocky Mountains
12. Hemmes, D.E.; Desjardin, D.E. (2002), An identification guide – mushrooms of Hawai'i