Type studies of Lactarius species published from China.
Thirteen species and one variety of the genus Lactarius (Russulaceae, Russulales) have been published from China. Since the original descriptions and illustrations are often poor, it is difficult to understand the concepts of these taxa. Therefore, the type specimens of all these taxa were traced, reviewed and (or) re-examined by employing modern taxonomic methods. The type collections of L. atrosquamulosus and L. omeiensis could not be found. The type collection of L. minimus var. macrosporus was found to consist of mixed material belonging to two different species and a lectotype, which belongs to Lactarius subgen. Russularia, sect. Olentes was designated. Lactarius squamulosus turned out to be a synonym of L. gracilis and L. wangii was synonymized here with L. volemus. Except for L. wangii, the others were known only from China or Asia. In total, ten taxa were provided with modern or new macromorphological descriptions based on the dried basidiocarps and with illustrations of basidiospores, pleuromacrocystidia, pileipellis and (or) stipitipellis. As a result of this re-examination, the differences between these taxa and their closely related taxa were discussed and their taxonomic positions in four contemporary infrageneric classification systems of Lactarius were proposed. Based on recent conspecific collections, information on habitats and geographical distribution of some species was provided.
Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Heilongtan, Kunming 650204, PR China. xhwang@mail.kib.ac.cn
Xiang-Hua
XH
Wang
D001487:Basidiomycota / Q000145:classification* / Q000166:cytology; D002681:China; D013172:Spores, Fungal / Q000166:cytology