Three new black Elaphomyces species (Elaphomycetaceae, Eurotiales, Ascomycota) from eastern North America with notes on selected European species

Abstract

We describe three new species of <I>Elaphomyces</I> from eastern North America. Of the three, <I>Elaphomyces loebiae</I> is the rarest, known only from North Carolina and South Carolina, and appears to associate primarily with ectomycorrhizal hardwoods but possibly also with conifers. <I>Elaphomyces cibulae</I> is widely distributed but disjunct from Florida, Mississippi, and North Carolina. <I>Elaphomyces cibulae</I> seems to primarily associate with Quercus species. <I>Elaphomyces mitchelliae</I> has the widest distribution of the three species, from Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, and appears to associate with either ectomycorrhizal hardwoods and/or conifers. In the course of comparing our new Elaphomyces species to previously described European species we discovered that <I>E. persoonii</I> var. <I>minor</I> is conspecific in all essential details with and thus a synonym of <I>E. cyanosporus</I>.