NORTH AMERICAN DESERT TRUFFLES: THE GENUS CARBOMYCES (ASCOMYCOTA, CARBOMYCETACEAE)

The genus Carbomyces was erected by Gilkey to accommodate two species of North American desert truffles, C. emergens and C. longii. These differ from other hypogeous Ascomycetes in having nonamyloid, brown asci and a gleba of large, thin-walled hyphae, both of which dry in the desiccating desert con...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Harvard papers in botany 2001-07, Vol.6 (1), p.209-214
Main Authors: Trappe, James M., Weber, Nancy S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Asci
Ascomycota
Biological taxonomies
Deserts
Fungal spores
Fungi
Holotypes
Hyphae
Reagents
Scientific Papers
Spores
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Summary:The genus Carbomyces was erected by Gilkey to accommodate two species of North American desert truffles, C. emergens and C. longii. These differ from other hypogeous Ascomycetes in having nonamyloid, brown asci and a gleba of large, thin-walled hyphae, both of which dry in the desiccating desert conditions and disintegrate at maturity to form a powdery spore mass. At maturity the ascomata emerge and are blown about, the spore powder being released as the dried peridium abrades away or breaks. Younger ascomata are eaten by rodents. Because these novel features do not otherwise occur in the Pezizaceae, Trappe erected the monotypic family Carbomycetaceae. Weber discovered that a species assigned to the Gasteromycete genus Abstoma by Zeller, A. longii, was in fact an Ascomycete. In this paper A. longii is transferred to Carbomyces, but as the epithet longii is already in use in the genus, we assign a new epithet to it, C. gilbertsonii, in honor of Dr. Robert Gilbertson, who has devoted much of his mycological interest to fungi of the southwestern deserts.
ISSN:1043-4534
1938-2944