Albatrellus citrinus sp. nov., connected to Picea abies on lime rich soils

Field observations indicated that a morphotype of Albatrellus subrubescens seemed connected to Picea abies and lime rich soils, while the original morphotype seemed connected with Pinus sylvestris and indifferent to lime. We conducted a molecular study (ITS sequencing of 22 Albatrellus specimens) to test the hypothesis that we in fact had discovered a new species. Our results confirmed the hypothesis, i.e. the Picea taxon (604 bp ITS) had little intraspecific variation in spite of 1600 km distance between samples, but compared with the Pinus taxon (598 bp ITS) the sequence difference was constantly 5.6% regardless of close distance (75 km). We describe the new species A. citrinus, which apart from ecology and ITS sequence, is different from A. subrubescens by a distinct yellowing with age, lack of dark spots of the cap, a mild taste and somewhat narrower spores. A. citrinus seems to be more related to A. ovinus than to A. subrubescens, and A. syringae may not even be a true Albatrellus.