Asterinema caseariae

Asterinema caseariae Bat. & Gayão, Anais IV Congr. Soc. bot. Brasil: 160 (1953)                                                          Fig. 1

Index Fungorum number: IF 293427; Facesoffungi number: FoF 06211

Biotrophic or parasitic on living leaves. Colonies 130–311 µm wide, 130–275 µm high (x̅ = 220 × 210 µm, n = 10), forming roundish to irregular blackened blotches, sometimes in groups. Sexual morph: Thyriothecia 75–48 μm high × 105–320 μm diam., circular with irregular margin, solitary or gregarious, semi-immersed to superficial, carbonaceous, and black. Peridium 6–10 μm thick, comprising several layers of compressed, brown-black, 3–4 μm broad cells of textura angularis. Hamathecium sparse, hyaline, 1.5 μm broad, septate or nonseptate, long pseudoparaphyses inclined towards the center. Asci 50–100 μm × 10–16 μm (x̅ = 80 × 12 μm, n = 15), 8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, obclavate, with a short pedicel. Ascospores 16–20 μm × 6–7 μm (x̅ = 17 × 6.8 μm, n = 10), biseriate, hyaline, oblong to broadly ellipsoid or subclavulate, guttulate, slightly constricted at the septum, wall minutely roughened upper cell wider and shorter than the lower cell. Asexual morph: Undetermined.

Material examined – BRAZIL, on leaves of Casearia sp. (Flacourtiaceae), 30 September 1955, K. P. Dumont (NY00914016, holotype).

Economic significance – The genus Asterinema comprises foliicolous fungi or leaf inhabiting fungi that manisfests as black and brown mildew, powdery mildew, smuts and rusts on wide range of hosts (Ali Ganie 2010).