Meliolina
Meliolina Syd. & P. Syd., Annls mycol. 12(6): 553 (1914).
Index Fungorum number: IF 3105; Facesoffungi number: FoF 06890, 49 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2022), 1 species with molecular data.
Parasitic on living leaves. Colonies hypophyllous, superficial, dense to subdense, black. Hyphae superfcial, brown, straight to substraight, branched, septate, darker at septa, closely reticulate. Sexual morph: Ascomata globose to subglobose, dense, gregarious, with a central ostiole, verrucose. Hamathecium lacking paraphyses. Asci 6–8-spored, fissitunicate, ellipsoid to broadly clavate, with short pedicel, evanescent. Ascospores overlapping 2–4-seriate, cylindrical with somewhat fattened ends, hyaline when young, becoming brown at maturity, 3-septate, constricted and darken at septa, end cells shorter and smaller than central cells, with hyaline bands near the septum, with roughened walls. Asexual morph: Unknown (adapted from Hyde et al. 2013).
Type species: Meliolina cladotricha (Lév.) Syd. & P. Syd.
Notes: Meliolina is characterised by hypophyllous, superficial, dense to subdense colonies, globose to subglobose, dense ascomata, ellipsoid to broadly clavate asci and cylindrical, hyaline ascospores with somewhat flattened ends. Pirozynski (1974) mentioned the asexual state of Meliolinaceae as similar to Phialophora sect. catenulatae, but differs in that the conidiophores are very heavily pigmented, thick-walled and dichotomously branched (Sivanesan 1984). Stevens (1927, 1928) treated Meliolina in Meliolaceae and this was followed by Eriksson (1981). Saenz and Taylor (1999) reported that Meliolina is phylogenetically distant from Meliolaceae based on phylogenetic analysis of SSU sequence data. Meliolina differs from Meliola in producing haustoria from capitate hyphopodia while Meliolina species penetrate the host by stomatopodia and develop internal hyphae (Hansford 1946, Hughes 1993). Hughes (1993) reported that the superficial mycelium of Meliola forms directly from an ascospore but that of Meliolina is the result of outlet cells which develop out of the leaf stomata and form small groups of superficial hyphae. Hughes (1993) introduced Meliolinaceae to accommodate Meliolina and provided an account of 38 species. Meliolina also resembles Meliola but differs in having faintly septate hyphae, and dichotomously branched phialides. Meliola produce conidia through sessile phialides formed directly from the superficial hyphae, while Meliolina produce setiform phialides formed from branches of the superficial hyphae (Hughes 1981, Hyde et al. 2013). Meliolina also have eight ascospores in each ascus but Meliola form 2–4-spores, within an ascus (Stevens 1925, Hansford 1961, Hongsanan et al. 2015d). Meliolina has ascospores with hyaline subterminal bands which is absent in Meliola. Hyde et al. (2013) transferred Meliolina to Meliolales based on the superficial ascomata formed on black hyphal colonies, dark brown hyphae with capitate hyphopodia, broadly clavate, or saccate asci lacking an ocular chamber and brown 4-septate ascospores. Meliolina is a distinct and type genus of Meliolinaceae but molecular data is available for only one species Meliolina sydowiana (SSU). Fresh collections with DNA sequence data are needed to confirm the taxonomic placement of the genus.
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