A comprehensive study on agaricus-like mushrooms from the university of Dar es salaam mwalimu jk Nyerere Mlimani campus

A survey was conducted for one year, from March 2013 to March 2014 by collecting Agaricus like mushrooms from the University of Dar es Salaam, Mwalimu JK Nyerere Mlimani Campus. Agaricus like mushrooms morphologicaly are characterised by medium to large size basidiocarp on the central stalk that separate easily from the cap; free gills, presence of veil and chocolate brown hymenium and basidiospores in mature specimens. A total of 68 Agaricus-like mushrooms were found in this study. Characterising them molecularly using the ITS region, revealed them to belong to two distinct genera Agaricus L and Hymenagaricus H. representing total of 10 distinct species. In the study, Agaricus trisulphuratus and one un described species were suspected poisonous, edibility of two species were noted, while edibility of the rest was unknown. This is the first time mushroom belonging to Hymenagaricus are reported from Tanzania, and based on the result finding one new Hymenagaricus and two new Agaricus species are also proposed for scientific descriptions based on International Nomenclatural rules.