Species diversity within the Morchella esculenta group (Ascomycota : Morchellaceae) in Germany and France

The distribution of the Morchella escidenta group in Germany and France is examined based on 22 samples, a sample from Montenegro is studied as well. In the recent literature the group was often treated as a single species, M. esculenta sensu lato. Our study, based on the polymorphism of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region within the nuclear ribosomal DNA (mDNA), indicates the presence of three distinct species: M. esculenta (L.) Pers., M. crassipes (Vent.) Pers. : Fr., and M. spongiola Bond. They can be identified easily by restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) of the ITS region. (c) 2005 Gesellschaft fur Biologische Systematik. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.