Lachnaceae ( Helotiales , Leotiomycetes ) of New Zealand—An Introduction

This is the first of a planned series of articles on the taxonomy and diversity of Lachnaceae ( Leotiomycetes , Helotiales ) of New Zealand. Based largely on specimens from the New Zealand Fungarium (Te Kohinga Hekaheka o Aotearoa) (PDD) that have DNA sequences available, this paper provides a brief survey of the New Zealand species present in each of the genera currently accepted as Lachnaceae . Ninety species of Lachnaceae are listed here for New Zealand from either PDD or the literature, but 14 of these records lack validation with DNA sequence data. Of the records that have been validated genetically, eight require recombination and 56 are of unnamed species. Based on an ITS phylogeny, several of the species appear to belong in no currently named genus. For most of these taxa without a genus, a recent separate multi‐gene analysis confirmed their phylogenetic position. One of the unnamed genera contains a single species that has been identified as Cudoniella javanica , a species first described from Java in 1899; a lectotype is selected for this species and it is here recombined in a new genus, Lachnocudoniella . The other four unnamed genera are not formally described here as new taxa.