Clavarioid fungi from Brazil: novelties in Clavulina ( Cantharellales )

Clavulina J. Schröt. accommodates species usually with coralloid, occasionally simple, infundibuliform, effuse-coralloid, or resupinated basidiomata, typically with two curved sterigmata and hyaline, smooth, guttulated basidiospores. During surveys in the Brazilian Amazon and Northeast Atlantic Rain Forest, several specimens of Clavulina were collected, and, after morphological and DNA analyses based in ITS and nLSU, some of them could not be assigned to known taxa. Thus, six new species are proposed: Clavulina alba , sp. nov. has white basidiomata with cylindrical to flattened branches; C . crystallifera , sp. nov. and C . cystidiata , sp. nov. have crystals among the hyphae, but C . cystidiata has also cystidia; C . simplex , sp. nov. and C . studerae , sp. nov. have simple basidiomata, while C . terminalis , sp. nov. is characterized mainly by the presence of hyphal ends. In addition, the synonymization of C . paraincrustata to C . incrustata is proposed. Description, images and discussion of the new species and the synonymization are provided, as well as insights into the morphological characters, ecology and distribution of Clavulina species.