Pirex
Genus of fungi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pirex is a fungal genus in the family Meruliaceae. It is a monotypic genus, containing the single crust fungus Pirex concentricus. It is found in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, where it causes a white rot in woody hardwood and conifer debris generated by timber harvesting.[2]
| Pirex | |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Basidiomycota |
| Class: | Agaricomycetes |
| Order: | Polyporales |
| Family: | Meruliaceae |
| Genus: | Pirex Hjortstam & Ryvarden (1985) |
| Type species | |
| Pirex concentricus (Cooke & Ellis) Hjortstam & Ryvarden (1985) | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
Taxonomy
The species Pirex concentricus was originally described by Mordecai Cubitt Cooke and Job Bicknell Ellis in 1885 as Radulum concentricum. Ellis collected the type specimens from Oregon.[4] A century after Cooke's publication, Kurt Hjortstam and Leif Ryvarden circumscribed the new genus Pirex to contain this fungus, as they believed it to have a unique combination of traits that would not adequately fit into any other known genera. The name Pirex is an anagram of the fungal genus Irpex.[5]
In 1995, Hjortstam considered Pirex to be a synonym of Pseudolagarobasidium, and proposed the new combination Pseudolagarobasidium concentricum. Modern systematics considers the two genera to be distinct;[6] Pseudolagarobasidium is classified in the family Phanerochaetaceae. Hjortstam added Hydnum subvinosum Berk. & Broome to Pirex in 1987,[7] but this fungus is considered now a species of Radulodon.[8]