Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/3/4/12 The current status of the family Russulaceae in the Uttarakhand Himalaya, India Joshi S1*, Bhatt RP1, and Stephenson SL2 1Departmet of Botany and Microbiology, H. N. B. Garhwal University, Srinagar Garhwal, Uttarakhand 246 174, India –
[email protected],
[email protected] 2Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701, USA –
[email protected] Joshi S, Bhatt RP, Stephenson SL 2012 – The current status of the family Russulaceae in the Uttarakhand Himalaya, India. Mycosphere 3(4), 486–501, Doi 10.5943 /mycosphere/3/4/12 The checklist provided herein represents a current assessment of what is known about the ectomycorrizal family Russulaceae from the Uttarakhand Himalaya. The checklist includes 105 taxa, 55 of which belong to the genus Lactarius Pers. ex S.F. Gray and 50 are members of the genus Russula Pers. ex S.F. Gray. Eleven of the species of Lactarius (listed as Lactarius sp. 1 to 11 in the checklist) are apparently new to science and have yet to be formally described. Key words – Ectomycorrhizal fungi – Himalayan Mountains – Lactarius – Russula – Taxonomy Article Information Received 24 July 2012 Accepted 31 July 2012 Published online 28 August 2012 *Corresponding author: Sweta Joshi – e-mail –
[email protected] Introduction crucial niche relationships of the various The family Russulaceae is one of the elements that make up the forest biota, largest ectomycorrhizal families in the order including the macrofungi themselves. The Agaricales. The family was established by large gap that exists with respect to our Roze (1876) as the Russulariees (non.