Macromycetes in a psammohygrophilous forest: Banco National Park

Banco National Park, with a surface area of 3438.34 ha, is a forest massif stretching between latitudes 5°21' and 5°25' North and between longitudes 4°1' and 4°5' West. The oldest of Côte d'Ivoire's national parks, it is home to the country's only example of psammohygrophilous Turraeanthus africanus and Heisteria parvifolia forest. It's a park of many interests and challenges, both because of its location, entirely embedded in the city of Abidjan, and above all because of its history, rich with numerous discoveries and scientific advances. The forest is particularly rich in fungi, and its mycoflora is highly diversified. However, the mycological flora has been overlooked in the many studies carried out to date. Yet fungi are an important link in the trophic chain. Our study therefore set out to assess the specific composition, functional and structural diversity and establish a dichotomous identification key for the Park's higher fungi genera. The result is a list of 97 species of higher fungi belonging to 38 genera, 25 families and 13 orders.