Mushrooms of the genus Helvella were first described by Linnaeus in 1753, and have subsequently been recorded in many parts of the world, including many locations in China. These Mushrooms have a distinctive saddle-shaped cap, and tend to be white, grey or light brown in colour, with heavily ribbed stipes (stems).
In a paper published in the journal Phytotaxa on 23 March 2016, Miao Wang of the Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering at Kunming University of Science and Technology and the Biotechnology and Germplasm Resources Institute at the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Science, Yong-Chang Zhao, also of the Biotechnology and Germplasm Resources Institute at the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Science, Qi Zhao, again of the Biotechnology and Germplasm Resources Institute at the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Science and of the Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia at the Kunming Institute of Botany and the Institute of Excellence in Fungal Research at Mae Fah Luang University, and De-Qun Zhou, also of the Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering at Kunming University of Science and Technology, describe a new species of Helvella from Yunnan Province, China.
The new species is named Helvella sublactea, in reference to its similarity to the European species Helvella lactea, for which it had previously been mistaken. The new species resembles the European species closely both in appearance and habitat preference, although the distribution of the two species is seperated by several thousand miles, and it was neccessary to cary out a DNA analysis in order to establish that the Chinese population was in fact a separate species, and not closely related.
Specimens of Helvella sublactea. Wang et al. (2016).
Helvella sublactea has a white or light grey sadle-shaped cap 1-2.5 cm high and up to 3.5 cm across, held on a stipe 3-8 cm in length. It is found on the ground in Oak and Chestnut forests at high altitudes in Yunnan and possibly other provinces of South China.
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