Two new species of Amanita sect. Phalloideae from Africa, one of which is devoid of amatoxins and phallotoxins

Abstract

Two new species of Amanitasect.Phalloideae are described from tropical Africa (incl. Madagascar) based on both morphological and molecular (DNA sequence) data. Amanitabweyeyensissp. nov. was collected, associated with Eucalyptus, in Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. It is consumed by local people and chemical analyses showed the absence of amatoxins and phallotoxins in the basidiomata. Surprisingly, molecular analysis performed on the same specimens nevertheless demonstrated the presence of the gene sequence encoding for the phallotoxin phallacidin (PHA gene, member of the MSDIN family). The second species, Amanitaharkonenianasp. nov. was collected in Tanzania and Madagascar. It is also characterised by a complete PHA gene sequence and is suspected to be deadly poisonous. Both species clustered together in a well-supported terminal clade in multilocus phylogenetic inferences (including nuclear ribosomal partial LSU and ITS-5.8S, partial tef1-α, rpb2 and β-tubulin genes), considered either individually or concatenated. This, along with the occurrence of other species in sub-Saharan Africa and their phylogenetic relationships, are briefly discussed. Macro- and microscopic descriptions, as well as pictures and line drawings, are presented for both species. An identification key to the African and Madagascan species of Amanitasect.Phalloideae is provided. The differences between the two new species and the closest Phalloideae species are discussed.

Morphology, Multilocus Phylogeny, and Toxin Analysis Reveal Amanita albolimbata, the First Lethal Amanita Species From Benin, West Africa

“…Phalloideae (Bresinsky and Besl, 1990;Unluoglu and Tayfur, 2003;Cai et al, 2014Cai et al, , 2016Li et al, 2015;Cui et al, 2018). In tropical Africa, very few lethal amanitas have been reported (Walleyn and Verbeken, 1998;Fraiture et al, 2019;. Only six species are known from tropical Africa including A. alliodora, A. murinacea, and A. thejoleuca described from Madagascar and A. bweyeyensis, A. harkoneniana, and A. strophiolata described from DR Congo (central Africa).…”

“…Until now, no lethal amanitas had been reported from West Africa. However, lethal amanitas have been documented from Central Africa and Madagascar (Fraiture et al, 2019). Amanita albolimbata represents the first lethal species of A. sect.…”

“…Lethal amanitas have been extensively studied in Asia, Europe, and America, where more than 50 toxic taxa have been described (Zhang et al, 2010;Cai et al, 2014Cai et al, , 2016Li et al, 2015;Yang, 2015;Thongbai et al, 2017;Cui et al, 2018). Although the genus Amanita is known worldwide, few taxa of the genus have been reported from tropical Africa (Walleyn and Verbeken, 1998;Eyi-Ndong et al, 2011;Yorou et al, 2014;Härkönen et al, 2015;De Kesel et al, 2017;Fraiture et al, 2019;. Six species belonging to A. sect.…”

“…Six species belonging to A. sect. Phalloideae are known from tropical Africa, of which three, including A. alliodora Pat., A. murinacea Pat., and A. thejoleuca Pat., were described from Madagascar (Patrouillard, 1924;Fraiture et al, 2019). The other three species, A. bweyeyensis Fraiture, Raspé and Degreef, A. harkoneniana Fraiture and Saarimäki, and A. strophiolata Beeli were described from DR Congo (Beeli, 1927(Beeli, , 1935Fraiture et al, 2019).…”

Amanita Section Phalloideae Species in the Mediterranean Basin: Destroying Angels Reviewed

“…Recent phylogenetic accounts on sect. Phalloideae [31][32][33][34][35][36][37] have focused primarily on American, Asian, and African species, with very few European data included. According to Neville & Poumarat [38], the only species of sect.…”