Penicillium chroogomphum, a new species in Penicillium section Ramosa isolated from fruiting bodies of Chroogomphus rutilus in China

• We described a new species, Penicillium chroogomphum, in Penicillium Section Ramosa.
• Penicillium chroogomphum shows closest relationship with P. lenticrescens and P. soppii.
• Penicillium chroogomphum grows more slowly in CYA, YES and DG18.
• Penicillium chroogomphum has ellipsoidal conidia in larger size.

During tissue culture from fruiting bodies of Chroogomphus rutilus, two Penicillium sp. strains were isolated that could not be assigned to any described species based on morphological and molecular phylogenetic analysis. Multigene phylogenetic analyses with the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, β-tubulin (benA) and calmodulin (cmd) genes, as well as morphological analyses revealed that these isolates were in the Penicillium section Ramosa. These isolates were closely related to P. lenticrescens and P. soppii in terms of multigene phylogeny, but their colonies and micro-morphological characters differed from these closest related species. We consider that these isolates constitute a new species in the genus Penicillium section Ramosa and propose the name P. chroogomphum.