Weraroa

Weraroa
Scientific classification
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Weraroa

Type species
Weraroa novae-zelandiae
A cross-section of the type species Weraroa novae-zelandiae (Psilocybe weraroa).

Weraroa was a genus of mushrooms from the families Hymenogastraceae and Strophariaceae. The genus was initially described by mycologist Rolf Singer in 1958 to accommodate the single species Secotium novae-zelandiae reported by Gordon Herriott Cunningham in 1924.[1] It was thought that the genus represented an intermediary evolutionary stage between a hypogeous (underground) ancestor and the related epigeous (above ground) genus Stropharia.[2][3] Advances in phylogenetics and taxonomic changes since 1958 found it contained unrelated species from multiple genera. It is now considered a synonym of the genus Psilocybe.[4]

  1. ^ Cunningham GH. (1924). "A critical revision of the Australian and New Zealand species of the genus Secotium". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 49(2): 97–119.
  2. ^ Singer R. (1958). "New genera of fungi, IX. The probable ancestor of the Strophariaceae: Weraroa gen. nov". Lloydia 21(1): 45–47.
  3. ^ Theirs HD. (1984). "The secotioid syndrome". Mycologia 76(1): 1–8.
  4. ^ Weraroa in Index Fungorum