A new tremelloid yeast isolated from Asterophora lycoperdoides (Bull. : Fr.) Ditm.

Reports of a yeast stage of the homobasidiomycete Asterophora lycoperdoides were reexamined. Substantial differences in the physiological description and a gap of 11% G+C content were detected between the yeast and the mycelium. On the basis of nDNA reassociation experiments and restriction enzyme cleavage patterns of mtDNA using two different enzymes it has been concluded that the yeast strains and the mycelia are probably not the same species. The results of earlier reports about the life cycle, however, cannot be explained with these data. This yeast is newly described, because it shows unique physiological properties and no significant homology in DNA-DNA reassociation experiments to species it would normally be identified with in the literature. Because of its dolipore with cup-shaped parenthesome, we prefer the term tremelloid over assigning the strains to any existing genus, because no sexual structure or ballistospore has been observed so far.