Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 782 No. 2: 29 Oct. 2026
Type: Article
Published: 2026-10-29
DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.782.2.3
Page range: 141-153
Abstract views: 142
PDF downloaded: 3

A new species of Geastrum (Geastrales, Geastraceae) from Shandong Province, China

College of Plant Protection; Shandong Agricultural University; Tai’an; 271018; China
Shandong Academy of Environmental Science Co; Ltd; Ji’nan; 250109; China
College of Plant Protection; Shandong Agricultural University; Tai’an; 271018; China
College of Plant Protection; Shandong Agricultural University; Tai’an; 271018; China
College of Plant Protection; Shandong Agricultural University; Tai’an; 271018; China
College of Plant Protection; Shandong Agricultural University; Tai’an; 271018; China
Shandong Academy of Environmental Science Co; Ltd; Ji’nan; 250109; China
College of Plant Protection; Shandong Agricultural University; Tai’an; 271018; China
Fungi Earthstar fungi Geastraceae New Taxon Phylogeny Taxonomy

Abstract

Geastrum maolingense (Geastrales, Geastraceae), a new fungal species from Maoling Mountain in Ji’nan City, Shandong Province, China, is described and illustrated. It was found growing in a forest dominated by Platycladus orientalis. The description integrates morphological characteristics, ecological data, and molecular evidence. Phylogenetic analyses using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrLSU) sequences strongly support recognizing G. maolingense as a distinct species, forming an independent, highly supported clade within the genus Geastrum. A detailed morphological description, illustrations, comparisons with phenotypically similar and phylogenetically related species, and phylogenetic analysis results are provided.

References

  1. Accioly, T., Sousa, J.O., Moreau, P.A., Lecuru, C., Silva, B.D.B., Roy, M., Gardes, M., Paz, C., Gibertoni, T.B. & Martín, M.P. (2019) Hidden fungal diversity from the Neotropics: Geastrum hirsutum, G. schweinitzii (Basidiomycota, Geastrales) and their allies. PLOS ONE 16 (7): e0252273. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211388
  2. De Toni, G.B. (1887) Revisio monographica generis Geasteris Mich. e tribu Gasteromycetum. Revue de Mycologie 9: 61–77.
  3. Dissing, H. & Lange, M. (1962) Gasteromycetes of Congo. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique National de Belgique 32: 325–416. https://doi.org/10.2307/3667249
  4. Dörfelt, H. (1985) Die Erdsterne: Geastraceae und Astraeaceae. Ziemsen Verlag, Wittenberg Lutherstadt.
  5. Doyle, J.J. & Doyle, J. (1987) A rapid DNA isolation procedure for small quantities of fresh leaf material. Phytochemical Bulletin 19: 11–15.
  6. Finy, P., Papp, V., Knapp, D.G., Bóka, K., Kovács, G.M. & Dima, B. (2021) Geastrum dolomiticum, a new earthstar species from Central Europe. Plant Systematics and Evolution 307: 43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-021-01766-z
  7. Gardes, M. & Bruns, T.D. (1993) ITS primers with enhanced specificity for basidiomycetes—application to the identification of mycorrhizae and rusts. Molecular Ecology 2: 113–118. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294x.1993.tb00005.x
  8. Hall, T.A. (1999) BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analyses program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symposium Series 41: 95–98.
  9. Hemmes, D.E. & Desjardin, D.E. (2011) Earthstars (Geastrum, Myriostoma) of the Hawaiian Islands including two new species, Geastrum litchiforme and Geastrum reticulatum. Pacific Science 65: 477–496. https://doi.org/10.2984/65.4.477
  10. He, M.Q., Cao, B., Liu, F., Boekhout, T., Denchev, T.T., Schoutteten, N., Denchev, C.M., Kemler, M., Gorjón, S.P., Begerow, D., Valenzuela, R., Davoodian, N., Niskanen, T., Vizzini, A., Redhead, S.A., Ramírez-Cruz, V., Papp, V., Dudka, V.A., Dutta, A.K., García-Sandoval, R., Liu, X.Z., Kijpornyongpan, T., Savchenko, A., Tedersoo, L., Theelen, B., Trierveiler-Pereira, L., Wu, F., Zamora, J.C., Zeng, X.Y., Zhou, L.W., Liu, S.L., Ghobad-Nejhad, M., Giachini, A.J., Li, G.J., Kakishima, M., Olariaga, I., Haelewaters, D., Sulistyo, B., Sugiyama, J., Svantesson, S., Yurkov, A., Alvarado, P., Antonín, V., da Silva, A.F., Druzhinina, I., Gibertoni, T.B., Guzmán-Dávalos, L., Justo, A., Karunarathna, S.C., Galappaththi, M.C.A., Toome-Heller, M., Hosoya, T., Liimatainen, K., Márquez, R., Mešić, A., Moncalvo, J.M., Nagy, L.G., Varga, T., Orihara, T., Raymundo, T., Salcedo, I., Silva-Filho, A.G.S., Tkalčec, Z., Wartchow, F., Zhao, C.L., Bau, T., Cabarroi-Hernández, M., Cortés-Pérez, A., Decock, C., De Lange, R., Weiss, M., Menolli Jr, N., Nilsson, R.H., Fan, Y.G., Verbeken, A., Gafforov, Y., Meiras-Ottoni, A., Mendes-Alvarenga, R.L., Zeng, N.K., Wu, Q., Hyde, K.D., Kirk, P.M. & Zhao, R.L. (2024) Phylogenomics, divergence times and notes of orders in Basidiomycota. Fungal Diversity 126 (1): 127–406. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13225-024-00535-w
  11. Kasuya, T., Hosaka, K., Uno, K. & Kakishima, M. (2012) Phylogenetic placement of Geastrum melanocephalum and polyphyly of Geastrum triplex. Mycoscience 53: 411–426. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10267-012-0186-z
  12. Kornerup, A. & Wanscher, J.H. (1981) Methuen Handbook of Colour. 3rd edition. Eyre Methuen, London, 252 pp.
  13. Kretzer, A.M. & Bruns, T.D. (1999) Use of atp6 in fungal phylogenetics: An example from the Boletales. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 13 (3): 483–492. https://doi.org/10.1006/mpev.1999.0680
  14. Lloyd, C.G. (1902) The Geastrae. Bulletin of the Lloyd Library of Botany 2: 1–43.
  15. Nylander, J. (2004) MrModeltest 2.2. Computer software distributed by the University of Uppsala. Sweden: Evolutionary Biology Centre.
  16. Persoon, C.H. (1794) Neuer Versuch einer systematischen Einteilung der Schwämme. Neues Magazin für die Botanik 1: 63–128.
  17. Ponce de León, P. (1968) A revision of the family Geastraceae. Fieldiana: Botany 31: 301–349. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.2389
  18. Rathnayaka, A.R., Tennakoon, D.S., Jones, G.E., Wanasinghe, D.N., Bhat, D.J., Priyashantha, A.H., Stephenson, S.L., Tibpromma, S. & Karunarathna, S.C. (2025) Significance of precise documentation of hosts and geospatial data of fungal collections, with an emphasis on plant-associated fungi. New Zealand Journal of Botany 63 (2–3): 462–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/0028825x.2024.2381734
  19. Ronquist, F. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2003) Mrbayes 3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics 19 (12): 1572–1574. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btg180
  20. Song, X.H., Lv, X.B. & Li, C.R. (2015) Willingness and motivation of residents to pay for conservation of urban green spaces in Jinan, China. Acta Ecologica Sinica 35 (4): 89–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chnaes.2015.06.003
  21. Smith, S.A. & Dunn, C.W. (2008) Phyutility: a phyloinformatics tool for trees, alignments and molecular data. Bioinformation 24: 715–716. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btm619
  22. Stamatakis, A. (2006) RAxML-VI-HPC: maximum-likelihood-based phylogenetic analyses with thousands of taxa and mixed models. Bioinformatics 22 (21): 2688–2690. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btl446
  23. Staněk, V.J. (1958) Geastraceae. In: Pilát, A. (Ed.) Flora ČSR B1: Gasteromycetes. Českolovenská Akademie Věd, Prague, pp. 392–526, 777–795.
  24. Vilgalys, R. & Hester, M. (1990) Rapid genetic identification and mapping of enzymatically amplified ribosomal DNA from several Cryptococcus species. Journal of Bacteriology 172 (8): 4238–4246. https://doi.org/10.1128/jb.172.8.4238-4246.1990
  25. Wang, P.M., Liu, X.B., Dai, Y.C., Horak, E., Steffen, K. & Yang, Z.L. (2018) Phylogeny and species delimitation of Flammulina: taxonomic status of winter mushroom in East Asia and a new European species identified using an integrated approach. Mycological Progress 17: 1013–1030. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-018-1409-2
  26. Wang, P.M. & Yang, Z.L. (2019) Two new taxa of the Auriscalpium vulgare species complex with substrate preferences. Mycological Progress 18: 641–652. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-019-01477-3
  27. Wang, X. & Bau, T. (2023) Seven New Species of the Genus Geastrum (Geastrales, Geastraceae) in China. Journal of Fungi 9 (2): 251–278. https://doi.org/10.3390/jof9020251
  28. White, T.J., Bruns, T., Lee, S. & Taylor, J. (1990) Amplification and direct sequencing of fungal ribosomal RNA genes for phylogenetics. In: Innis, M., Gelfand, D., Sninsky, J. & White, T. (Eds.) PCR Protocols: A Guide to Methods and Applications. Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 315–322. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-372180-8.50042-1
  29. Wijayawardene, N.N., Hyde, K.D., Dai, D.Q., Sánchez-García, M., Goto, B.T., Saxena, R.K., Erdoğdu, M., Selçuk, F., Rajeshkumar, K.C., Aptroot, A., Błaszkowski, J., Boonyuen, N., da Silva, G.A., de Souza, F.A., Dong, W., Ertz, D., Haelewaters, D., Jones, E.B.G., Karunarathna, S.C., Kirk, P.M., Kukwa, M., Kumla, J., Leontyev, D.V., Lumbsch, H.T., Maharachchikumbura, S.S.N., Marguno, F., Martínez-Rodríguez, P., Mešić, A., Monteiro, J.S., Oehl, F., Pawłowska, J., Pem, D., Pfliegler, W.P., Phillips, A.J.L., Pošta, A., He, M.Q., Li, J.X., Raza, M., Sruthi, O.P., Suetrong, S., Suwannarach, N., Tedersoo, L., Thiyagaraja, V., Tibpromma, S., Tkalčec, Z., Tokarev, Y.S., Wanasinghe, D.N., Wijesundara, D.S.A., Wimalaseana, S.D.M.K., Madrid, H., Zhang, G.Q., Gao, Y., Sánchez-Castro, I., Tang, L.Z., Stadler, M., Yurkov, A. & Thines, M. (2022) Outline of Fungi and fungus-like taxa–2021. Mycosphere 13: 53–453. https://doi.org/10.5943/mycosphere/13/1/2
  30. Wu, Y.Q., Liu, S.Q., Wang, T.Y., Meng, J.L., Chang, Mi.C. & Wang, S.R. (2024) Geastrum sanglinense, a new species from the Manghe Rhesus Monkey National Nature Reserve, China. Mycoscience 65 (1): 12–18. https://doi.org/10.47371/mycosci.2023.11.001
  31. Yang, X., Su, J.Q., Zhou, H.M. & Zhao, C.L. (2024) Morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analyses revealed Geastrum yunnanense sp. nov. (Geastrales, Basidiomycota) from Southwest China. Phytotaxa 665 (3): 179–192. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.665.3.1
  32. Yang, X., Zhu, Y.G., Duan, S.J., Wu, X.X. & Zhao, C.L. (2025) Morphology and multigene phylogeny revealed four new species of Geastrum (Geastrales, Basidiomycota) from China. MycoKeys 113: 73–100. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.113.139672
  33. Zamora, J.C., Calonge, F.D. & Martín, M.P. (2015) Integrative taxonomy reveals an unexpected diversity in Geastrum section Geastrum (Geastrales, Basidiomycota). Persoonia 34: 130–165. https://doi.org/10.3767/003158515X687443
  34. Zamora, J.C., de Diego Calonge, F., Hosaka, K. & Martín, M.P. (2014) Systematics of the genus Geastrum (Fungi: Basidiomycota) revisited. Taxon 63: 477–497. https://doi.org/10.12705/633.36
  35. Zhou, H., Li, J. & Hou, C. (2022) Two new species of the genus Geastrum from the Yanshan Mountains in China. Mycosystema 41: 1–16. https://doi.org/10.13346/j.mycosystema.210194
  36. Zhang, Y.J., Zhang, S. & Liu, X.Z. (2010) A simple method of genomic DNA extraction suitable for analysis of bulk fungal strains. Letters in Applied Microbiology 51: 114–120. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-765X.2010.02867.x
  37. Zhang, ZQ, Li, C.H., Li, L., Shen, H.W., He, J., Su, X.J. & Luo, Z.L. (2023) Geastrum suae sp. nov. (Geastraceae, Basidiomycota) a new species from Yunnan Province, China. Biodiversity Data Journal 11: e99027. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.11.e99027

How to Cite

Wei, Y.-Q., Shen, J.-X., Sun, Y., Zhang, D.-B., Luo, W.-J., Li, Z., Han, D.-F. & Wang, P.-M. (2026) A new species of Geastrum (Geastrales, Geastraceae) from Shandong Province, China. Phytotaxa 782 (2): 141–153. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.782.2.3