Sarcoscypha Coccinea - Taxonomy, Naming, and Phylogeny

Taxonomy, Naming, and Phylogeny

The species was originally named Helvella coccinea by the Italian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli in 1772. Other early names include Peziza coccinea (Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, 1774) and Peziza dichroa (Theodor Holmskjold, 1799). Although some authors in older literature have applied the generic name Plectania to the taxon following Karl Fuckel's 1870 name change (e.g. Seaver, 1928; Kanouse, 1948; Nannfeldt, 1949; Le Gal, 1953), that name is now used for a fungus with brownish-black fruit bodies. Sarcoscypha coccinea was given its current name by Jean Baptiste Émil Lambotte in 1889.

Obligate synonyms (different names for the same species based on one type) include Lachnea coccinea Gillet (1880), Macroscyphus coccineus Gray (1821), and Peziza dichroa Holmskjold (1799). Taxonomic synonyms (different names for the same species, based on different types) include Peziza aurantia Schumacher (1803), Peziza aurantiaca Persoon (1822), Peziza coccinea Jacquin (1774), Helvella coccinea Schaeffer (1774), Lachnea coccinea Phillips (1887), Geopyxis coccinea Massee (1895), Sarcoscypha coccinea Saccardo ex Durand (1900), Plectania coccinea (Fuckel ex Seaver), and Peziza cochleata Batsch (1783).

Sarcoscypha coccinea is the type species of the genus Sarcoscypha, having been first explicitly designated as such in 1931 by Frederick Edward Clements and Cornelius Lott Shear. A 1990 publication revealed that the genus name Sarcoscypha had been used previously by Carl F.P. von Martius as the name of a tribe in the genus Peziza; according to the rules of Botanical Nomenclature, this meant that the generic name Peziza had priority over Sarcoscypha. To address the taxonomical dilemma, the genus name Sarcoscypha was conserved against Peziza, with S. coccinea as the type species, to "avoid the creation of a new generic name for the scarlet cups and also to avoid the disadvantageous loss of a generic name widely used in the popular and scientific literature". The specific epithet coccinea is derived from the Latin word meaning "deep red". The species is commonly known as the "scarlet elf cup", the "scarlet elf cap", or the "scarlet cup fungus".

S. coccinea var. jurana was described by Jean Boudier (1903) as a variety of the species having a brighter and more orange-colored fruit body, and with flattened or blunt-ended ascospores. Today it is known as the distinct species S. jurana. S. coccinea var. albida, named by George Edward Massee in 1903 (as Geopyxis coccinea var. albida), has a cream-colored rather than red interior surface, but is otherwise identical to the typical variety.

Within the large area that includes the temperate to alpine-boreal zone of the northern hemisphere (Europe and North America), only S. coccinea had been recognized until the 1980s. However, it had been known since the early 1900s that there existed several macroscopically indistinguishable taxa with various microscopic differences: the distribution and number of oil droplets in fresh spores; germination behavior; and spore shape. Detailed analysis and comparison of fresh specimens revealed that what had been collectively called "S. coccinea" actually consisted of four distinct species: S. austriaca, S. coccinea, S. dudleyi, and S. jurana.

The phylogenetic relationships in the genus Sarcoscypha were analyzed by Francis Harrington in the late 1990s. Her cladistic analysis combined comparisons of the sequences of the internal transcribed spacer in the non-functional RNA with fifteen traditional morphological characteristics, such as spore features, fruit body shape, and degree of curliness of the "hairs" that form the tomentum. Based on her analysis, S. coccinea is part of a clade that includes the species S. austriaca, S. macaronesica, S. knixoniana and S. humberiana. All of these Sarcoscypha species have numerous, small oil droplets in their spores. Its closest relative, S. macaronesica, is found on the Canary Islands and Madeira; Harrington hypothesized that the most recent common ancestor of the two species originated in Europe and was later dispersed to the Macaronesian islands.