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This article deals with the polarity of electrostatic charges that are carried on ballistic basidiospores after their liberation from fruiting bodies. The spores were collected by placing a portable device beneath the basidiome and allowing them to fall in a horizontal homogeneous electrostatic field, created by vertical parallel plane electrodes. Thus, the experimental setup enabled to investigate the primary charges, the charges present on spores immediately after the release from spore bearing cells. Spores of 135 basidiomes of 50 species of hymenomycetous fungi were collected in various natural conditions. The non-turgescent (drying up, collapsing or ceasing to sporulate) basidiomes were excluded from the taxonomical analysis; the 128 turgescent basidiomes (223 spore samples) of 47 species were taxonomically analyzed. These species represented eight orders (Agaricomycetes, Basidiomycota), covering 21 families and 36 genera. The analysis showed that the spore charges were distributed according to the polarity similarly in all samples in a species, and in a genus. In most cases also genera of one family had the same type of polarity distribution of spore charges. Possibly all taxa from species to monophyletic families are characterized by specific type of polarity of the primary electrostatic charge of basidiospores. Depending on the taxonomical group, all spore charges were negative, positive, or both negative and positive charges were present. This information could be useful in investing the ballistosporic discharge mechanism and for constructing higher-level phylogeny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A legendary and very valuable medicinal fungus first known in China 2000 years ago is recognized in this study as a new species. The sanghuang mushroom (sanghuang) is a popular medicinal polypore used throughout China, Japan, and Korea. While its medicinal properties were recognized in an early Tang Dynasty herbal written in the 7th century, modern scientific research has only recently confirmed its highly effective antitumor properties. Although Japanese and Korean mycologists have adopted Phellinus linteus or P. baumii as the scientific name for sanghuang that belongs to the Inonotus baumii-I. linteus group in the Hymenochaetales (Basidiomycota), its species identity has not been satisfactorily answered. This study delimits the species of the I. baumii-I. linteus group including sanghuang, based on an analysis of morphological characteristics and nrDNA ITS sequences. Both morphological and molecular features were useful in separating different fungal species in this monophyletic group that are generally specialized with their host tree species. The true sanghuang is a new and previously undescribed species that grows solely on Morus in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. It is now rare and endangered in the wild. Six related species of the I. baumii-I. linteus group distributed in Asia have evolved to specific host tree species: I. baumii on Syringa, I. lonicericola on Lonicera, I. lonicerinus comb. nov. on Lonicera, I. sanghuang on Morus, I. vaninii on Populus, and I. weigelae sp. nov. on Weigela; a key is provided to ease the determination of these taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fully databased Mycological Herbarium of the Phytopathological Research Station of the Tartu University (Estonia) was founded together with the Station by Prof. Fedor Bucholtz in 1922. According to the PlutoF database, 1 January 2011 in the herbarium EAA there were 23,406 fungal specimens including 8,017 mainly microfungi collected in Estonia. Most of the Estonian specimens were collected by Elmar Lepik, the Head of the Phytopathological Station from 1929-1944 (4,447 specimens). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family Clavariachaetaceae (Basidiomycota, Hymenochaetales), two its genera Clavariachaete and Dichochaete, and all four very rare species distributed in South America are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DNA sequences accumulating in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases (INSD) form a rich source of information for taxonomic and ecological meta-analyses. However, these databases include many erroneous entries, and the data itself is poorly annotated with metadata, making it difficult to target and extract entries of interest with any degree of precision. Here we describe the web-based workbench PlutoF, which is designed to bridge the gap between the needs of contemporary research in biology and the existing software resources and databases. Built on a relational database, PlutoF allows remote-access rapid submission, retrieval, and analysis of study, specimen, and sequence data in INSD as well as for private datasets though web-based thin clients. In contrast to INSD, PlutoF supports internationally standardized terminology to allow very specific annotation and linking of interacting specimens and species. The sequence analysis module is optimized for identification and analysis of environmental ITS sequences of fungi, but it can be modified to operate on any genetic marker and group of organisms. The workbench is available at http://plutof.ut.ee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]