Mushrooms in the basidiomycete family Boletaceae are ecologically and economically very important. However, due to the morphological complexity and the limited phylogenetic information on the various species and genera of this fungal family, our understanding of its systematics and evolution remains rudimentary. In this study, DNA sequences of four genes (nrLSU, tef1-α, rpb1, and rpb2) were newly obtained from ca. 200 representative specimens of Boletaceae. Our phylogenetic analyses revealed seven major clades at the subfamily level, namely Austroboletoideae, Boletoideae, Chalciporoideae, Leccinoideae, Xerocomoideae, Zangioideae, and the Pulveroboletus Group. In addition, 59 genus-level clades were identified, of which 22 were uncovered for the first time. These 22 clades were mainly placed in Boletoideae and the Pulveroboletus Group. The results further indicated that the characters frequently used in the morphology-based taxonomy of Boletaceae, such as basidiospore ornamentation, the form of the basidioma, and the stuffed pores each had multiple origins within the family, suggesting that the use of such features for high-level classification of Boletaceae should be de-emphasized and combined with other characters.

The phylogeny and systematics of cordycipitoid fungi have been extensively studied in the last two decades. However, systematic positions of some taxa in the family Cordycipitaceae have not yet been thoroughly resolved. In this study, a new phylogenetic framework of Cordycipitaceae is reconstructed using multigene (nr SSU , nr LSU, tef-1α, rpb1 and rpb2 ) sequence data with large-scale taxon sampling. In addition, ITS sequence data of species belonging to the Lecanicillium lineage in the family Cordycipitaceae are used to further determine their phylogenetic placements. Based on molecular phylogenetic data together with morphological evidence, two new genera ( Flavocillium and Liangia ), 16 new species and four new combinations are introduced. In the new genus Flavocillium , one new species F. bifurcatum and three new combinations previously described as Lecanicillium , namely F. acerosium, F. primulinium and F. subprimulinium , are proposed . The genus Liangia is built by the new species Lia. sinensis with Lecanicillium- like asexual morph, isolated from an entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria yunnanensis . Due to the absence of Paecilomyces hepiali , an economically and medically significant fungus, in the earlier phylogenetic analyses, its systematic position has been puzzling in both business and academic communities for a long time. Here, P. hepiali is recharacterized using the holotype material along with seven additional samples. It is assigned to the genus Samsoniella (Cordycipitaceae, Hypocreales) possessing Cordyceps -like sexual morph and Isaria- like asexual morph, and thus a new combination, namely S. hepiali is proposed . An additional nine new species in Samsoniella are described: S. alpina, S. antleroides, S. cardinalis, S. cristata, S. lanmaoa, S. kunmingensis , S. ramosa, S. tortricidae and S. yunnanensis. Four new species in Cordyceps are described: C. chaetoclavata, C. cocoonihabita, C. shuifuensis and C. subtenuipes . Simplicillium yunnanense , isolated from synnemata of Akanthomyces waltergamsii , is described as a new species.

Fungi of the family Boletaceae are of great importance in both ecology and economy. Our previous molecular phylogenetic studies have shown this family to have an extremely high species diversity in China. To further document the Chinese boletes, morphological studies and phylogenetic analyses were conducted including species of Boletaceae from China and other parts of the world. The results indicate that seven subfamily-level major clades and 62 generic clades can be retrieved, 52 of which are found in China. Furthermore, 100 species (comprising 32 genera) common in China are illustrated and described here in detail. Among them, four genera and 46 species are new to science, and 26 new combinations are proposed. To interpret the species concepts consistently, epitypes for five species are designated based on collections made from or near the type localities. Notes on eight extralimital species are also provided. Among the species reported here, most of the species are known only from East Asia. Only Leccinum scabrum (Bull.) Gray, Porphyrellus porphyrosporus (Fr. & Hök) E.-J. Gilbert and Tylopilus felleus (Bull.) P. Karst. are widely distributed in the Holarctic, and Buchwaldoboletus lignicola (Kallenb.) Pilát; Strobilomyces strobilaceus (Scop.) Berk. are in Eurasia; while Aureoboletus mirabilis (Murrill) Halling, Harrya chromapes (Frost) Halling et al., and Sutorius eximius (Peck) Halling et al. are found throughout East Asia-North America based on morphological and molecular phylogenetic evidences.

Mushrooms in the basidiomycete family Amanitaceae are very important both economically and ecologically. However, the delimitation of the family is still controversial, in part due to limited taxon sampling and in part because of insufficient gene fragment employed for molecular phylogenetic analyses. Furthermore, species diversity in the family is likely to have been largely underestimated, due to morphological similarity between taxa and phenotypic plasticity. In this study, we examined 1190 collections, including 1008 Chinese and 182 external ones, and performed the first comprehensive phylogenetic analyses of Amanitaceae using multi-locus sequence data. To test the monophyly of the Amanitaceae, a concatenated (nrLSU, rpb1, and rpb2) dataset of 200 taxa of the order Agaricales was analyzed. To infer the phylogeny of Amanitaceae, a concatenated nrLSU, tef1-α, rpb2 and β-tubulin dataset (3010 sequences from ca. 890 samples with 2309 newly generated sequences) was used. In this dataset, 252 sequences from the types of 77 species were provided. Our results indicate that Amanitaceae is a monophyletic group, and consists of five genera, namely Amanita, Catatrama, Limacella, Limacellopsis and Myxoderma. It is clear that Catatrama is closely related to Limacella, however, the phylogenetic relationships among these genera remain largely unresolved. Amanita contains 95% of the species in the family, and is here divided into three subgenera and eleven sections (subgen. Amanita, containing: sect. Amanita, sect. Amarrendiae, sect. Caesareae and sect. Vaginatae; subgen. Amanitina, containing: sect. Amidella, sect. Arenariae, sect. Phalloideae, sect. Roanokenses, sect. Strobiliformes and sect. Validae; and subgen. Lepidella, containing sect. Lepidella). Subgen. Lepidella occupies the basal position in the genus. One-hundred and sixty-two species of Amanitaceae known from China are treated in this study, including 50 novel species and 112 known taxa. Amanita gleocystidiosa, A. pyriformis, A. atrofusca, A. subjunquillea var. alba and A. areolata are treated as synonyms of A. sychnopyramis f. subannulata, A. orientigemmata, A. umbrinolutea, A. subjunquillea and A. zangii, respectively. 26 extralimital taxa including a novel species, namely Catatrama indica, were included in our study to allow us to make comparisons between these and the Chinese taxa. DNA sequence data for all the species of Amanitaceae in China and keys for identification of the species are provided.

Lethal amanitas (Amanita section Phalloideae) are a group of wild, fatal mushrooms causing many poisoning cases worldwide. However, the diversity and evolutionary history of these lethal mushrooms remain poorly known due to the limited sampling and insufficient gene fragments employed for phylogenetic analyses. In this study, five gene loci (nrLSU, ITS, rpb2, ef1-α and β-tubulin) with a widely geographic sampling from East and South Asia, Europe, North and Central America, South Africa and Australia were analysed with maximum-likelihood, maximum-parsimony and Bayesian inference methods. Biochemical analyses were also conducted with intention to detect amatoxins and phalloidin in 14 representative samples. Lethal amanitas were robustly supported to be a monophyletic group after excluding five species that were provisionally defined as lethal amanitas based on morphological studies. In lethal amanitas, 28 phylogenetic species were recognised by integrating molecular phylogenetic analyses with morphological studies, and 14 of them represented putatively new species. The biochemical analyses indicated a single origin of cyclic peptide toxins (amatoxins and phalloidin) within Amanita and suggested that this kind of toxins seemed to be a synapomorphy of lethal amanitas. Molecular dating through BEAST and biogeographic analyses with LAGRANGE and RASP indicated that lethal amanitas most likely originated in the Palaeotropics with the present crown group dated around 64.92 Mya in the early Paleocene, and the East Asia–eastern North America or Eurasia–North America–Central America disjunct distribution patterns were primarily established during the middle Oligocene to Miocene. The cryptic diversity found in this study indicates that the species diversity of lethal amanitas is strongly underestimated under the current taxonomy. The intercontinental sister species or sister groups relationships among East Asia and eastern North America or Eurasia–North America–Central America within lethal amanitas are best explained by the diversification model of Palaeotropical origin, dispersal via the Bering Land Bridge, followed by regional vicariance speciation resulting from climate change during the middle Oligocene to the present. These findings indicate the importance of both dispersal and vicariance in shaping the intercontinental distributions of these ectomycorrhizal fungi.

A new distinct genus of Boletales, Zangia, with phenotypic similarities to the genus Tylopilus, is proposed based on molecular and morphological data. The monophyly of Zangia was highly supported using two nuclear and three mitochondrial genes based on Maximum Parsimony, Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian analyses. Morphologically, Zangia is distinguished from other boletoid lineages by its combination of rugose pileus, pinkish to pink hymenophore, pink to pinkish brown spore deposit, pink scabrous squamules on the stipe, chrome yellow to golden yellow stipe base, chrome yellow to golden yellow mycelia on the base of the stipe, ixohyphoepithelium pileipellis, glabrous spores and bluish colour changes in the stipe in some species. Geographically, Zangia is currently only known from southern, southeastern and southwestern China under forests dominated by Fagaceae mixed with Pinaceae. Six species, including 4 new ones and 2 new combinations, are fully documented with taxonomic descriptions and illustrations. A key to the species in Zangia is provided. It is suggested that some of the species might have started diverging from each other relatively recently with the uplifts of the eastern Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains, and both the mycorrhizal host specificity or preference and geographic separation could contribute to their ongoing divergence.