Kingdom Fungi Class Agaricomycetes Rank Genus | Division Basidiomycota Family Agaricaceae Order Agaricales | |
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Similar Allopsalliota, Agaricales, Chlamydopus | ||
Micropsalliota fungi kingdom
Micropsalliota is a genus of small agaric fungi in the family Agaricaceae. The genus contains about 60 species, most of which are found in tropical areas.
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Taxonomy
The genus was circumscribed by Austrian mycologist Franz Xaver Rudolf von Höhnel in 1914 with Micropsalliota pseudovolvulata as the type species. This species was collected in 1907 by Höhnel in the Bogor Botanical Gardens in Bogor, Indonesia. The generic name refers to the similarity of the slender fruitbodies to those in Psalliota (a genus that has since been synonymized with Agaricus). Emendations were made to the genus in 1969 by Pegler and Rayner, and then in 1976 by Heinemann. Molecular phylogenetics has shown that the genus represents a monophyletic lineage in the family Agaricaceae that is sister to the genus Hymenagaricus.
Description
Micropsalliota fruitbodies have an ring on the stipe, free gill attachment, and brown spores. Micropsalliota is distinguished from similar genera with dark spore prints by its small- to medium-sized fruit bodies, ellipsoid to cymbiform (boat-shaped) basidiospores with an apical thickening in the endosporium, cheilocystidia that are often capitate (ending in a distinct compact head) or nearly so, and pileipellis hyphae encrusted with a pigment that turns olive to green after application of NH4OH.
Ecology and distribution
About 40 Micropsalliota species have been described by Belgian mycologist Paul Heinemann and collegaues from the tropics of Africa, America, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Eleven new species from Thailand were added in 2010. Micropsalliota pseudoglobocystis is the first species of the genus reported from China.
Species
As of January 2016, Index Fungorum accepts 59 species of Micropsalliota: