Morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analysis reveal Leccinum septentrionale sp. nov. (Boletaceae, Boletales) from China

Leccinum belongs to the Boletaceae and has attracted attention from mycologists worldwide given their ecological and economic importance. China has a high diversity of macrofungi; however, Leccinum has not been thoroughly studied due to a lack of specimen collections with associated molecular data. In this study, based on morphological evidence and phylogenetic analysis of the nucleotide sequences of four loci (ITS, LSU, rpb2, and tef1-α), one new species of Leccinum is described from Beijing, China. Morphologically, Leccinum septentrionale is characterized by its pileus yellowish-brown to brown dirty orange maculae and larger basidia with 24–40(–44) × 10–17 μm in size. This study expands the species diversity of Leccinum in Beijing and furnished valuable data support for future systematic research on Leccinum.