Three apiculate yeast strains, EJ7M09T , GJ5M15 and GJ15M04, isolated from mushrooms in Taiwan were found to represent a novel species of the genus Kloeckera. The phylogenetically closest relative of this novel species is Hanseniaspora occidentalis, but the type strain of H. occidentalis differed by 4.6 % divergence (25 substitutions; 5 gaps) in the sequence of the D1/D2 domain of the large subunit rRNA gene. This difference clearly suggests that the three strains represent a distinct species. As none of the strains that were examined in this study produced ascospores or exhibited conjugation on common sporulation medium either alone or in a pairwise mixture, this species could be considered as an anamorphic member of the genus Hanseniaspora, and a novel species, Kloeckera taiwanica sp. nov., is proposed, with EJ7M09 The ascosporogenous genus Hanseniaspora and its anamorphic genus Kloeckera are characterized by bipolar budding as apiculate yeasts (Smith, 1998a, b). Several novel apiculate yeasts have been described since Reess (1870) proposed a novel species Saccharomyces apiculatus (5Kloeckera apiculata, an anamorph of Hanseniaspora uvarum) to accommodate yeast strains that reproduce by bipolar budding. Meyer et al. (1978) carried out detailed taxonomic studies based on DNA-DNA reassociation and classified these apiculate yeasts into six species in the genus Hanseniaspora, proposed by Zikes (1911), and one species in the anamorphic genus Kloeckera, proposed by Janke (1923 Therefore, 13 Hanseniaspora species and two Kloeckera species are currently recognized.Members of the genera Hanseniaspora and Kloeckera have been reported in various habitats such as fruit, flowers, soil and fermenting juice, as well as insect-associated samples (Jindamorakot et al., 2009;Cadez et al., 2003Cadez et al., , 2006. During an investigation of yeast diversity in mushrooms in Taiwan, many Hanseniaspora and Kloeckera strains were also isolated from the fruiting bodies of mushrooms. Of these isolates, three strains (EJ7M09 T , GJ5M15 and GJ15M04) were distinctly different from members of currently recognized species. These strains were highly similar to each other in their morphological and molecular characteristics, indicating that they are conspecific. Strains EJ7M09 T , GJ5M15 and GJ15M04 were isolated from the fruiting bodies of the mushrooms Russula sp., Mycena sp., and Bisporella sp., respectively; EJ7M09 T was found in Hsinchu county, whereas GJ5M15 and GJ15M04 were from Pingtung county, Taiwan. Based on our data, we propose that these strains represent a novel species.The yeast strains were isolated from mushroom fruiting bodies as described by Hsieh et al. (2010). Approximately 1.0 g fruiting body from each sample was placed into a tube containing 9 ml yeast extract-malt extract (YM) broth (1 % glucose, 0.5 % peptone, 0.3 % yeast extract, 0.3 % malt extract, pH 5.4) supplemented with 50 mg chloramphenicol ml 21 and then vortex-mixed. One-tenth of a millilitre of successive decimal dilutions was spread on acidified YM agar (pH...