Assessment Notes

Justification

Cantharellus humidicola is a chanterelle species of miombo woodland. The original description of the species was from Tanzania, and there are notes that the species also occurs in the miombo of the Province of Haut-Katanga in Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Gilé National Reserve, Mozambique. Therefore, it is suspected that the species may in fact be widespread across miombo in southern Africa. However, further surveys are required to confirm this. While it may be locally impacted by certain threats to its habitat, these are currently not thought to have such a severe impact on the species that it would approach the thresholds for listing as threatened. Therefore, C. humidicola is assessed here as Least Concern.

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Geographic range

This species was originally described from miombo woodland in Tanzania (Buyck et al. 2013), and is also reported from Democratic Republic of Congo (De Kesel et al. 2017) and Gilé National Reserve, Mozambique. It is assumed that the species is widespread in miombo woodland in southern Africa.

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Population and Trends

There is no quantitative information regarding the population size and trend of this species, but it has been reported to grow in large groups of fruiting bodies (Buyck et al. 2013). There are ongoing threats to miombo woodland, though, so it is tentatively suspected that the population may be in decline.

Population Trend: Decreasing

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Habitat and Ecology

The genus Cantharellus consists of species that form ectomycorrhizal associations with trees. This species has been collected under trees in the genera Julbernardia and Brachystegia (Buyck et al. 2013, De Kesel et al. 2017). In Tanzania it has been found in areas of mixed forest (Buyck et al. 2013), while in Democratic Republic of Congo, it is also found in miombo woodland dominated by Marquesia macroura (De Kesel et al. 2017).

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Threats

While there may be localised impacts of land clearance for agriculture, urbanisation, mining and logging, it is not thought that these would represent significant threats to this species.

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Conservation Actions

No urgent actions are thought to be required. Surveys across the range of miombo woodlands in southern Africa would be useful in order to ascertain the ecology and the true full distribution of the species.

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Use and Trade

This species is edible, but appears not to be eaten by some (De Kesel et al. 2017).

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Source and Citation

Westrip, J.R.S. 2022. Cantharellus humidicola. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T189959447A217822364. Accessed on 26 November 2025.

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• Country occurrence