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Current Research in Environmental and Applied Mycology, vol.9, no.1, pp.241-254, 2019 (Scopus)
Russula is one of the most speciose genera among the agarics, but phylogenetic relationships among species and subgeneric groupings are poorly understood. Among them Russula juniperina is reported for the first time from Turkey based on morphology and molecular phylogeny. Comprehensive description of the morphological characters, macro and microphotographs of this poorly known species are provided, and comparison with phenetically similar and phylogenetically related species are discussed. The pileipellis structure in this species indicates its placement within the cuprea/juniperina clade of sect. Russula subsect. Maculatina. Our phylogenetic analysis shows that R. juniperina is phylogenetically closely related to, but distinct from R. adulterina and R. cuprea based on the ITS dataset. The lowest sequence divergence among in-group taxa was observed between R. juniperina and R. adulterina 0.006%, the next was between R. juniperina and R. cuprea 0.015%. The highest sequence divergence with in-group taxa was found between R. badia and R. font-queri, 0.134%. Thus, it was determined that genetically, R. juniperina was closer to R. adulterina than to R. cuprea.