Abstract
Clear distinction of the species of Hericium will aid in natural products discovery, medicinal applications, and breeding for commercial cultivation of these edible and medicinally valuable mushrooms. A phylogeny of Hericium species from North America, together with key taxa from Europe, was accomplished using sequence data from the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and adjacent large ribosomal subunit (LSU), translation elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF-1α), and RNA polymerase second largest subunit (RPB2) gene sequences. Compared to previous unresolved phylogenies based solely on ITS data, the species of Hericium were resolved as monophyletic groups, including the type species H. coralloides (synonyms H. flagellum and H. ramosum; Europe and North America), H. alpestre (Europe to central Asia), H. americanum (eastern North America), H. abietis (western North America), H. cirrhatum (Europe and boreal-montane North America), H. erinaceus (Europe), two recently described species of the H. erinaceus species complex, H. asiaticum (Eastern Asia) and H. carolinense (eastern United States), and a third new species in this complex from western North America, H. oregonense, described herein. All taxa, including the newly described species within the H. erinaceus complex, were strongly supported in maximum likelihood analyses. Citation: Koga J, Thorn RG, Langer E (2025). A multilocus phylogeny of Hericium (Hericiaceae, Russulales). Persoonia 55: 141-157. doi: 10.3114/persoonia.2025.55.04.