Efibula Sheng H. Wu

Type species.

Efibula tropica Sheng H. Wu

Description.

Basidiomata annual, resupinate, adnate, at first orbicular and then becoming confluent. Hymenial surface white, whitish buff to “ Amber, ” thinning out indeterminately, sometimes pruinose under the lens. Hyphal system monomitic; generative hyphae simple-septate, smooth, thin- to slightly thick-walled. Cystidia absent or present, rarely fusiform cystidia present in the hymenium. Basidia cylindrical to clavate with a stalk-like base, sometimes slightly constricted without a basal clamp, producing four sterigmata. Basidiospores broadly ellipsoid, smooth, thin-walled (Chen et al. 2021, 2022; Li et al. 2022).

Notes.

The genus Efibula was circumscribed by Wu (1990), with Efibula tropica Sheng H. Wu designated as the type species (Wu 1990). Efibula was traditionally classified in the family Phanerochaetaceae (Kirk et al. 2008). With revisions to the family-level classification of the order Polyporales, phylogenetic analyses support the placement of Efibula in the family Irpicaceae (Justo et al. 2017; Chen et al. 2021; Osman and El-Nuby 2023; Wang et al. 2023). Although Efibula and Phanericium are not easy to separate morphologically, they are genetically distinct. In general, Efibula species have a more compact texture with a dense subiculum that is not always clearly distinguished from the subhymenium (Larsson et al. 2025). In this study, three new species (E. murina, E. yaoshanensis, and E. zhaotongensis) are introduced based on morphological characters and multigene phylogenetic evidence. Comparative characteristics of Efibula species are presented in Table 2 to establish taxonomic differentiation for the newly proposed species.