Pirex

Pirex is a fungal genus in the family Meruliaceae. It is a monotypic genus, containing the single crust fungus Pirex concentricus. It is found in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, where it causes a white rot in woody hardwood and conifer debris generated by timber harvesting.^[2]

Pirex
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Basidiomycota
Class:	Agaricomycetes
Order:	Polyporales
Family:	Meruliaceae
Genus:	Pirex Hjortstam & Ryvarden (1985)
Type species
Pirex concentricus (Cooke & Ellis) Hjortstam & Ryvarden (1985)
Synonyms[1]
Radulum concentricum Cooke & Ellis (1885) Phlebia concentrica (Cooke & Ellis) Kropp & Nakasone (1985)[2] Pseudolagarobasidium concentricum (Cooke & Ellis) Hjortstam (1995)[3]

Taxonomy

The species Pirex concentricus was originally described by Mordecai Cubitt Cooke and Job Bicknell Ellis in 1885 as Radulum concentricum. Ellis collected the type specimens from Oregon.^[4] A century after Cooke's publication, Kurt Hjortstam and Leif Ryvarden circumscribed the new genus Pirex to contain this fungus, as they believed it to have a unique combination of traits that would not adequately fit into any other known genera. The name Pirex is an anagram of the fungal genus Irpex.^[5]

In 1995, Hjortstam considered Pirex to be a synonym of Pseudolagarobasidium, and proposed the new combination Pseudolagarobasidium concentricum. Modern systematics considers the two genera to be distinct;^[6] Pseudolagarobasidium is classified in the family Phanerochaetaceae. Hjortstam added Hydnum subvinosum Berk. & Broome to Pirex in 1987,^[7] but this fungus is considered now a species of Radulodon.^[8]