Pisolithus albus (Sclerodermataceae), a first record from Egypt

Abstract

Pisolithus albus (Basidiomycota, Sclerodermataceae) is reported here for the first time from Egypt where it was found on the Karaman Island in Sohag Governorate. It was found forming an ectomycorrhizal association with Eucalyptus occidentalis and Vachellia nilotica. The fungus was also reported near two potentially new hosts: Paspalum distichum and Dodonaea viscosa; however, the mycorrhizal connections with these two hosts is not proven. Phylogenetic analyses for the combined ITS and LSU rDNA sequences dataset placed the Egyptian specimen within the Pisolithus albus complex clade. It is described, illustrated, and phylogenetically analyzed in this article. Various hosts and locations of the taxon are reviewed.

Full text

Pisolithus albus (Sclerodermataceae), a rst record from Egypt
Ahmed E. Abdel-Aziz1* & Mahmoud S. Bakhit2
Abstract. Pisolithus albus (Basidiomycota, Sclerodermataceae) is reported here for the
rst time from Egypt where it was found on the Karaman Island in Sohag Governorate.
It was found forming an ectomycorrhizal association with Eucalyptus occidentalis and
Vachellia nilotica. The fungus was also reported near two potentially new hosts: Paspalum
distichum and Dodonaea viscosa; however, the mycorrhizal connections with these two
hosts is not proven. Phylogenetic analyses for the combined ITS and LSU rDNA sequences
dataset placed the Egyptian specimen within the Pisolithus albus complex clade. It is
described, illustrated, and phylogenetically analyzed in this article. Various hosts and
locations of the taxon are reviewed.
Key words: Basidiomycota, ectomycorrhizal fungi, Middle East, molecular phylogeny,
sub-tropical fungi
Introduction
Pisolithus (Basidiomycota, Sclerodermataceae) is one of
the most cosmopolitan mutualistic gasteromycete genera
in the world (Marx 1977). It was introduced by Albertini
and Schweinitz (1805) to accommodate the type spe-
cies Pisolithus arenarius. Members of this genus were
recorded from various habitats with regard to temperature,
nutrient levels and heavy metal concentrations, and has
been recorded from tropical, subtropical and temperate
regions (Watling et al. 1999; Martín et al. 2013; Rusevska
et al. 2015; Jaouani et al. 2015; Crous et al. 2016; Mifsud
& Mifsud 2022). Pisolithus species make mycorrhizal
associations with dierent plant species in the families
Casuarinaceae, Dipterocarpaceae, Fagaceae, Myrtaceae
and Pinaceae (Marx 1977; Malloch & Kuja 1979). Piso-
lithus is widely used in forestry and horticulture due to
growth stimulation properties reported in dierent tree
species, including acacias, eucalypts and pines (Garbaye
et al. 1988; Duponnois & Bâ 1999).
Because of the heterogeneity of Pisolithus in terms
of sporocarp, spore and mycelial culture morphology,
the genus was considered for a long time as monotypic
(Coker & Couch 1928; Cunningham 1942; Pilát 1958),
and described species within the genus have been widely
regarded as conspecic with Pisolithus tinctorius (Cham-
bers & Cairney 1999). In the last two decades, many
phylogenetic studies established several species under this
genus (Anderson et al. 1998; Martin et al. 1998; Gomes
et al. 2000; Díez et al. 2001; Lebel et al. 2018). These
studies revealed signicant genetic variation within the
species, implying that the P. tinctorius group is a com-
plex of several species that cannot be distinguished by
morphological studies (Anderson et al. 2001; Martin et al.
2002; Kanchanaprayudh et al. 2003; Moyersoen et al.
2003; Singla et al. 2004). Martin et al. (2002) concluded
that there are three distinct lineages of Pisolithus with at
least 11 dierent species. The genus currently comprises
20 species (MycoBank 2022). One of the most common
species in this genus is Pisolithus albus, that was col-
lected from a wide range of geographical locations, e.g.,
Australia, Brazil, China, India, Italy, Morocco, Malta,
New Caledonia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Senegal, Spain,
Thailand, Tunisia, and the USA. However, this is the rst
record of this species from Egypt. Most of the collections
of Pisolithus albus were in ectomycorrhizal associations
with Eucalyptus, Acacia and Kunzea. Hosaka (2009) and
Jourand et al. (2010) supposed that P. albus may have
four genetic ecotypes. These genetic variations and bio-
geographical patterns may originate from long-distance
dispersal, and this may give the species high adaptability
to change its mycorrhizal associations (Hosaka 2009).
This work aimed to report the rst record of Pisolithus
albus from Egypt, based on morphological examination
and phylogenetic analyses. Hosts and locations of Piso-
lithus albus are also reviewed.
1 Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, New
Valley University, El-Kharga 72511, Egypt
ORCID: 0000-0001-8809-7174
2 Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Sohag
University, Sohag 82524, Egypt
* Corresponding author e-mail: aelbadry@sci.nvu.edu.eg
ISSN 2544-7459 (print)
ISSN 2657-5000 (online)
Plant and Fungal Systematics 68(1): 232–238, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.35535/pfsyst-2023-0004
Article info
Received: 31 Dec. 2022
Revision received: 20 Apr. 2023
Accepted: 20 Apr. 2023
Published: 31 July 2023
Associate Editor
Marcin Piątek
© 2023 W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

A. E. Abdel-Aziz & M. S. Bakhit: Pisolithus albus, a rst record from Egypt 233
Materials and methods
Site description
Samples were collected from Karaman Island (26°35′
26.1″N, 31°42′29.6″E – 26°33′48.8″N, 31°42′01.4″E),
that is located in the middle of the River Nile at Sohag
Governorate, Egypt. It is an uninhabited island, which
is characterized by sandy or clay soil with an elevation
about 62 m above the sea level, hot desert climate and
precipitation less than 2.28 mm per year. The habitats on
the island vary from submerged to dry lands. The island
vegetation is a mixture of wild plants and urban trees.
Sample collection and morphological description
Basidiomata of Pisolithus albus were collected from
Karaman Island several times during the period between
December 2018 and November 2020. Metadata includ-
ing date, geographic coordinates, habitat and associated
plant communities were recorded on site. Collections
were packed in clean sterilized plastic bags and brought
to the laboratory for further examination. Microscopic
observations and measurements were taken from tissue
sections mounted in 5% KOH and examined using an
Olympus SZ61 stereomicroscope. Micrographs were
taken using an Olympus BX51 compound microscope
(Olympus, Tokyo, Japan) equipped with a Toup Tek
XCAM1080PHA (Toup Tek, Zhejiang, China) digital
imaging system. Dried basidiocarps were deposited in
Sohag University Microbial Culture Collection (SUMCC).
Basidiospores from the recorded species did not germinate
on potato dextrose agar (PDA; Oxoid, Basingstoke, UK)
or MMN agar media (Marx 1969).
DNA extraction, sequencing and phylogenetic
analyses
Total genomic DNA was extracted directly from the
gleba of fruiting bodies using a microbial DNA extrac-
tion kit (MOBIO; Mo Bio Laboratories, Carlsbad,
CA, USA) following the manufacturer’s protocol.
The primer pairs ITS1 and ITS4 (White et al. 1990)
and LROR and LR7 (Vilgalys & Hester 1990) were
used for PCR amplication and sequencing of inter-
nal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions and the partial
large subunit nuclear rDNA (LSU), respectively. PCR
amplication and DNA sequencing were conducted as
described by Abdel-Wahab et al. (2009) by Macrogen
Inc., South Korea. Sequences were assembled using
Sequencher 4.2.2 (Gene Codes Corporation). Newly
generated sequences were deposited in the GenBank
(Tab. 1). Sequences of ITS-LSU were aligned with
other sequences of Pisolithus albus recorded from dif-
ferent localities and hosts, other species of Pisolithus
and the outgroup taxa: Boletinellus merulioides and
B. exiguus using Clustal X (Thompson et al. 1997)
and optimized manually. The concatenated sequence
alignments were obtained from SequenceMatrix v 1.7
(Vaidya et al. 2011). Maximum-parsimony (MP) and
maximum-likelihood (ML) phylogenetic analyses
were constructed using MEGA X (Kumar et al. 2018).
Bootstrap support (Felsenstein 1985) was obtained by
using the Tamura-Nei model. Bayesian inference (BI)
analysis was carried out using MrBayes ver. 3.1.2 (Ron-
quist & Huelsenbeck 2003) with the SYM+G model that
was determined by Akaike information criterion (AIC)
in MrModeltest 2.2 (Nylander 2004). Four simultaneous
Markov chains were run for ve million generations and
trees were sampled every 100 generations. Trees were
visualized using Njplot ver. 2.3 (Perrière & Gouy 1996),
and additionally layouts were done in the program of
Adobe Illustrator CC (Adobe Systems Inc., CA, USA).
Results
Phylogenetic analysis
The combined ITS and LSU rDNA dataset consisted of
57 taxa, of which 40 belong to the Pisolithus albus com-
plex, 15 representatives of other species of Pisolithus
and 2 species from Boletinellaceae used as an outgroup,
namely Boletinellus merulioides and B. exiguus. Phyloge-
netic analyses of individual ITS and LSU rDNA datasets
produced similar topology (data not shown). The ITS
dataset consisted of 455 characters, which 135 gaps are
excluded, 213 constant, 20 variable parsimony-uninform-
ative and 87 parsimony-informative characters. The LSU
rDNA dataset consisted of 600 characters, which 49 gaps
are excluded, 483 constant, 32 variable parsimony-un-
informative characters and 36 parsimony-informative
characters.
The Bayesian analysis resulted in 50,000 trees after
ve million generations. The rst 12,500 trees, repre-
senting the burn-in phase of the analyses were discarded,
while the remaining trees were used for calculating pos-
terior probabilities. The maximum parsimony of com-
bined ITS and LSU rDNA dataset consisted of 1,055
characters that included: 154 gaps (that are excluded),
725 constant, 52 variable parsimony-uninformative and
124 parsimony-informative characters. The most parsimo-
nious tree had a length of 375 steps, a consistency index
(CI) of 0.798680, a retention index (RI) of 0.919419 and
the composite index is 0.769860. Maximum parsimony
tree was obtained using the Subtree-Pruning–Regrafting
(SPR) algorithm (Nei & Kumar 2000) with search level 1
in which the initial trees were obtained by the random
addition of sequences (10 replicates). Bootstrap analysis
was performed with 1000 replicates to assess the statis-
tical support for the tree. Maximum likelihood analysis
yielded one tree with -ln likelihood score of 3435.47. ML,
MP and Bayesian analyses produced trees with similar
topologies. The Bayesian phylogenetic tree is shown in
Figure 1. Molecular phylogenetic analyses of the com-
bined ITS and LSU rDNA placed our Pisolithus albus
material within the P. albus complex with high statistical
support (95/85/99 for MP/ML/BYPP, respectively) (Fig-
ure 1). The collection from Egypt is nested in a subclade
containing Pisolithus albus collections from Australia,
Pakistan, New Caledonia, India, Senegal and Thailand
in ectomycorrhizal associations with Acacia, Eucalyptus
and unknown hosts.

234 Plant and Fungal Systematics 68(1): 232–238, 2023
Table 1. List of species, potential hosts, countries of origin, voucher/culture numbers and GenBank accession numbers of sequences used in this
study. The novelties described here are in bold font.
Taxa Voucher / Culture
number
GenBank accession number Country of origin Potential host
ITS LSU
Pisolithus albus SUMCC H-18004 OK184610 OK175781 Egypt Eucalyptus occidentalis,
Vachellia nilotica
Pisolithus albus CMU52-8 JQ365190 – Thailand –
Pisolithus albus CMU52-9 JQ365191 – Thailand –
Pisolithus albus CMU53-5 JQ365187 – Thailand –
Pisolithus albus PISOLI-12 AJ629887 – Thailand Eucalyptus camaldulensis
Pisolithus albus 15PISOLI FR748123 – Thailand Eucalyptus camaldulensis
Pisolithus albus 13PISOLI FR748121 – Thailand Eucalyptus camaldulensis
Pisolithus albus 14PISOLI FR748122 – Thailand Eucalyptus camaldulensis
Pisolithus albus BBH:28599 FR748127 – Thailand –
Pisolithus albus Pak IF7 MN295477 – Pakistan –
Pisolithus albus KSRF-0007 MF510372 – India –
Pisolithus albus COI-022 AF374690 – Senegal Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus COI-015 AF374688 – Senegal Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus COI-024 AF374622 – Senegal Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus mar02 AF228655 – Morocco Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus ast05 AF228656 – Spain Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus NT03 FJ874739 – Australia –
Pisolithus albus NT01 FJ874741 – Australia –
Pisolithus albus NT04 FJ874742 – Australia –
Pisolithus albus CS02 FJ874751 – Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus PERTH4681 FJ710202 EU718176 Australia –
Pisolithus albus QLD04 FJ874745 – Australia –
Pisolithus albus RLB8183 KY689606 KY689577 Australia Acacia sp., Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus PA1 AF440868 – Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus MH731(CSH4339) AF374675 – Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus MDB4536 KY689608 KY689579 Australia Acacia sp., Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus MDB4535 KY689607 KY689578 Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus MDB F151/11 KY689591 KY689569 Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus MDB F36/10 KY689592 KY689570 Australia Eucalyptus rupestris
Pisolithus albus CA02 AF270782 – Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus albus MEL:2382873 KP012747 – Australia –
Pisolithus albus MD07-004 AM947069 – New Caledonia Acacia sp.
Pisolithus albus MD07-220 AM947117 – New Caledonia Acacia spirorbis
Pisolithus albus MD07-146 AM947100 – New Caledonia –
Pisolithus albus MD07-142 AM947099 – New Caledonia –
Pisolithus albus MD07-027 AM947076 – New Caledonia –
Pisolithus albus PDD77422 KY689594 KY689572 New Zealand Kunzea sp.
Pisolithus albus PDD77434 KY689595 KY689573 New Zealand Kunzea sp.
Pisolithus albus PDD77430 KY689596 KY689574 New Zealand Kunzea sp.
Pisolithus albus PDD77428 KY689599 KY689575 New Zealand Kunzea sp.
Pisolithus croceorrhizus MDB F53/07 KY689610 KY689581 Australia Eucalyptus miniata
Pisolithus croceorrhizus MDB F21/11 KY689609 KY689580 Australia Eucalyptus brachyandra
Pisolithus croceorrhizus PA684WTV01 KY689612 – Australia Acacia sp., Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus tympanobaculus MU98/6 AF374646 – Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus tympanobaculus MU98/8 AF374648 – Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus tympanobaculus MU98/19 AF374658 – Australia Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus arhizus 92fbisPISOLI FR748132 – Italy Willwood
Pisolithus arhizus 92bbisPISOLI FR748129 – Italy Willwood
Pisolithus tinctorius ATCC 38054 KC146359 KC146374 USA –
Pisolithus tinctorius AWW219 EU718114 EU718148 USA –
Pisolithus thermaeus PDD77420 KY689621 – New Zealand Kunzea sp.
Pisolithus thermaeus PDD74168 KY689622 KY689588 New Zealand Kunzea sp.
Pisolithus thermaeus PDD100258 KY689625 – New Zealand Kunzea sp.
Pisolithus marmoratus VIC30600 HQ693099 – Brazil Eucalyptus sp.
Pisolithus marmoratus MDB F22/07 KY689589 – Australia Eucalyptus miniata, E. tetrodonta
Boletinellus merulioides AFTOL-ID 575 DQ200922 AY684153 USA –
Boletinellus exiguus MA-Fungi 47677 AJ419185 – Brazil –

A. E. Abdel-Aziz & M. S. Bakhit: Pisolithus albus, a rst record from Egypt 235
Taxonomy
Pisolithus albus (Cooke & Massee) Priest, in Lebel,
Pennycook & Barrett, Phytotaxa 348(3): 167. 2018
(Fig. 2)
≡ Polysaccum album Cooke & Massee, Grevillea 20: 36.
1891.
Description. Basidiomata epigeous, club-shaped, with
irregular, subglobose, piriform or capitulate shape, 4.5–
15 cm wide × 6–18 cm high and with a stout deeply
rooting base 3–8 × 4–13 cm in diameter, attached to the
substratum by yellowish rhizomorphic strands. Peridium
thin, shiny, smooth, membranous, single-layered, leathery
when young, dry ruptured at maturity, white to cream
and rarely bu in ripe basidiomata, yellowish around the
base of fresh specimens, cracked into irregular segments
from the top downwards at maturity, exposing the mature
spores. Gleba developing within subglobose to ovoid or
polygonal peridioles, 1–5 × 1–3 mm (av. = 3.1 × 2 mm,
n = 25). Peridioles are larger in the upper parts, while
smaller and tightly packed toward the stipe, whitish when
young turning into ochre to pulerulent umber at matu-
rity. It is encased by a very thin, yellow-ochre membrane
and separated by gelatinous or sticky, carboneous tramal
plates. At maturity of the basidiomata, peridioles wall
collapse and the gleba turned into powdery mass. Basidia
8–10 × 16–23 µm (av. = 9 × 19.5 µm, n = 10), hyaline,
PA684WTV01
Pisolithus croceorrhizus
PDD100258
Pisolithus thermaeus
MU98/19
Pisolithus
tympanobaculus
MU98/6
Pisolithus
tympanobaculus
MU98/8
Pisolithus
tympanobaculus
COI-024
P. albus Senegal - Eucalyptus sp.
0.05
PDD77434 P. albus New Zealand - Kunzea sp.
PDD77430 P. albus New Zealand - Kunzea sp.
PDD77428 P. albus New Zealand - Kunzea sp.
PDD77422 P. albus New Zealand - Kunzea sp.
MDB F151/11 P. albus Australia - Eucalyptus sp.
MDB4535 P. albus Australia - Eucalyptus sp.
MEL:2382873 P. albus - Australia
CS02 P. albus Australia - Eucalyptus sp.
MDBF36 P. albus Australia - Acacia sp., Eucalyptus sp.
PISOLI-12 P. albus Thailand - Eucalyptus sp.
13PISOLI
P. albus Thailand -
Eucalyptus camaldulensis
Mar02 P. albus Morocoo - Eucalyptus sp.
COI-022 P. albus Senegal - Eucalyptus sp.
CA02 P. albus Australia - Eucalyptus sp.
Ast05 P. albus Spain - Eucalyptus sp.
PERTH4681 P. albus Australia
MDB4536 P. albus Australia - Acacia sp., Eucalyptus sp.
QLD04 P. albus Australia
PA1 P. albus Australia - Eucalyptus sp.
MH731 P. albus Australia - Eucalyptus sp.
RLB8183 P. albus Australia - Acacia sp., Eucalyptus sp.
Pak IF7 P. albus Pakistan
NT04 P. albus Australia
NT03 P. albus Australia
KSRF-0007 P. albus India
NT01 P. albus Australia
MD07-220 P. albus New Caledonia - Acacia sp.
MD07-146 P. albus New Caledonia
MD07-142 P. albus New Caledonia
MD07-027 P. albus New Caledonia
MD07-004 P. albus New Caledonia - Acacia sp.
COI-015 P. albus Senegal - Eucalyptus sp.
CMU53-5 P. albus Thailand
CMU52-9 P. albus Thailand
CMU52-8 P. albus Thailand
BBH:28599 P. albus Thailand
MDBF53 Pisolithus croceorrhizus
MDBF21 Pisolithus croceorrhizus
PDD77420 Pisolithus thermaeus
PDD74168 Pisolithus thermaeus
VIC30600 Pisolithus marmoratus
MDBF22 Pisolithus marmoratus
AWW219 Pisolithus tinctorius
ATCC38054 Pisolithus tinctorius
92fbisPISOLI Pisolithus arhizus
92bbisPISOLI Pisolithus arhizus
MA-Fungi 47677 Boletinellus exiguus
AFTOL-ID 575 Boletinellus merulioides
100/99
100/97
100/99
66/66
100/99
100/99
99/96
98/87
95/91
99/99
95/85
85/-
94/61
89/76
81/-
95/57
77/-
84/55
15PISOLI
P. albus Thailand -
Eucalyptus camaldulensis
14PISOLI
P. albus Thailand -
Eucalyptus camaldulensis
Pisolithus albus complex
Outgroup
Pisolithus
SUMCC H-18004 P. albus Egypt - Eucalyptus occidentalis, Vachellia nilotica
Figure 1. Bayesian inference tree generated from the concatenated ITS and LSU sequences of genus Pisolithus. The tree is rooted with Boleti-
nellus merulioides (AFTOL-ID 575) and B. exiguus (MA-Fungi 47677). Bootstrap support on the nodes represents MP and ML ≥ 50%. Branches
received Bayesian posterior probabilities (BYPP) ≥ 95% are in bold. The sequences generated in this study are in bold letters.

236 Plant and Fungal Systematics 68(1): 232–238, 2023
clavate with a swollen apex, carried 5 or 6 basidiospores.
Clamp connection present. Basidiospores 7–11 µm in
diameter (av. = 9 µm, n = 45), globose to subglobose,
bright yellow when young turned into reddish-brown at
maturity, coarsely ornamented with broadly connate struc-
tures that form irregular pyramid-like spines.
Materials examined. EGYPT. Sohag Governorate, Kara-
man Island (26°34′42.3″N, 31°42′06.5″E), on sandy land near
Eucalyptus occidentalis (Myrtaceae), 3 December 2018, M. S.
Bakhit & A. E. Abdel-Aziz (SUMCC H-18004); Karaman
Island (26°34′42.3″N, 31°41′56.1″E) near Paspalum distichum
(Poaceae) and Dodonaea viscosa (Sapindaceae), 5 Novem-
ber 2019, M. S. Bakhit (SUMCC H-19005); Karaman Island
(26°34′40.1″N, 31°42′06.8″E), in soil near Vachellia nilotica
trees (Fabaceae), 11 March 2020, A. E. Abdel-Aziz (SUMCC
H-20009).
GenBank accession numbers. ITS: OK184610; LSU:
OK175781.
Notes. Pisolithus albus was recorded in several con-
secutive surveys from Karaman Island in autumn and
winter 2018, 2019 and 2020. In this period, temperature
ranged from 18 to 32°C; relative humidity was from
22 to 45%.
Discussion
Pisolithus albus is one of the most common gasteromy-
cetes in the world, which is recorded here for the rst time
from Egypt to extend our knowledge about its distribution
in Africa to four countries, namely: Egypt (this study),
Morocco (Yakhlef et al. 2009), Senegal (Duponnois & Bâ
1999) and Tunisia (Jaouani et al. 2015). Morphologically,
Pisolithus albus specimens from Egypt are slightly dif-
ferent than collections from other localities. Basidiomata
in our collection (4.5–15 cm wide × 6–18 cm high) are
slightly bigger than that recorded from Tunisia (3–12 cm
in diameter) and smaller than that recorded from Italy
(3–20 cm in diameter); peridioles in our collection are
subglobose to ovoid or polygonal, while they are ellip-
tic-ovoid to lens shape in the Tunisian collection. Basidia
were observed clearly in our collection, which carried
5–6 basidiospores, while they were not observed in other
collections recorded from Italy, Tunisia, Morocco and
Senegal; basidiospores from the Egyptian collection are
slightly smaller than those recorded in the Tunisian col-
lection (7–11 µm vs 9–12 μm diameter in Egyptian and
Tunisian records, respectively). During this study, P. albus
was found associated with Eucalyptus occidentalis and
Figure 2. Pisolithus albus (SUMCC H-18004). A–G – basidiomata; H – basidium and basidiospores; I–J – basidiospores. Scales: A–F = 5 cm,
G = 3 cm, H–J = 10 μm.
A CB
D E FG
H I J

A. E. Abdel-Aziz & M. S. Bakhit: Pisolithus albus, a rst record from Egypt 237
Vachellia nilotica (syn. Acacia nilotica). This fungus was
reported previously in ectomycorrhizal association with
Acacia and Eucalyptus species from dierent countries
(Díez et al. 2001; Founoune et al. 2002; Martin et al.
2002; Kanchanaprayudh et al. 2003; Singla et al. 2004;
Jaouani et al. 2015; Gargano et al. 2018; Lebel et al.
2018; Chouhan & Panwar 2021). During the present study,
P. albus basidiomata were reported for the rst time in the
vicinity of two potential hosts, Paspalum distichum and
Dodonaea viscosa; however, the mycorrhizal connections
with these two hosts were not investigated. Therefore,
detailed studies are required to prove mycorrhizal asso-
ciation of these two hosts with the fungus.
Phylogenetic analysis of the combined ITS and LSU
sequences placed the Egyptian specimen within P. albus
complex clade and formed a distinct lineage with P. arhi-
zus, P. croceorrhizus and P. tympanobaculus, which is
similar to the results obtained by Martin et al. (2002)
and Lebel et al. (2018). Phylogenetically, the Egyptian
specimen showed a high level of genetic similarity with
collections of P. albus from Australia (RLB8183) which
forms mycorrhizal associations with Acacia sp., Euca-
lyptus sp., and other collections from Australia (NT03,
NT04), Pakistan (Pak IF7) and India (KSRF-0007) where
its hosts are unknown.
Conclusion
This study documents the rst reports of Pisolithus albus
from Egypt. It was found forming ectomycorrhizal asso-
ciations with Eucalyptus occidentalis and Vachellia nilot-
ica. It was also reported near two potentially new hosts,
Paspalum distichum and Dodonaea viscosa. The reported
specimens were compared morphologically with other
reports of Pisolithus albus from dierent localities and
showed slight dierences. Phylogenetic analyses of the
combined ITS and LSU sequences placed the Egyptian
specimen within P. albus complex clade.
Acknowledgments
Authors are thankful to Prof. Mohamed A. Abdel-Wahab for his
valuable suggestions during the work on this article.
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