Ruhlandiella

There are records of Ruhlandiella fungi from Argentina, Australia, Canary Islands, Chile, Italy, and United States (California).

[7] Ruhlandiella was originally a monotypic genus, first described by Paul Christoph Hennings in 1903 based on a single species: R.

In 2019, researchers from the University of Florida College of Agricultural and Life Sciences described two more species of Ruhlandiella discovered from deep Patagonian forests in South America (Chile and Argentina).

[3] Ruhlandiella species are characterized by their exothecial ascocarp, highly ornamented ascospores, and paraphyses covered with gelatinous sheathes that greatly exceed asci in length.

From 1990 to 2018, Ruhlandiella species were thought to be ectomycorrhizal fungi, associated only with Eucalyptus, Melaleuca or members of the family Myrtaceae.

[14] Recently, researchers have shown that Ruhlandiella patagonica forms ectomycorrhizal association with Lophozonia obliqua and Nothofagus pumilio (Nothofagaceae) and may help with seedling establishment of these trees.

[3][15] Furthermore, because the fruiting bodies of R. patagonica look like snail eggs, it has been hypothesized that ground feeding birds might act as long-distance dispersal agents for these truffles.