Pleosporales » Pleosporales, genus incertae sedis

Pleosphaerellula

Pleosphaerellula Naumov & Czerepan., Bot. Mater. Otd. Sporov. Rast. Bot. Inst. Komarova Akad. Nauk S.S.S.R. 8: 149 (1952).

Index Fungorum number: IF 4226; Facesoffungi number: FoF 11825, 1 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2022), no molecular data available.

Saprobic on dead branches. Sexual morph: Ascomata scattered, carbonaceous, immersed under epidermis to erumpent, spherical to globose-depressed, black, lacking an ostiole, and breaking on top of the ascomata to release ascospores at maturity. Peridium thick, comprising 2 layers of cells, outer layer with relatively small, heavily pigmented thick-walled, brown to dark brown cells, arranged in textura angularis, inner layer of subhyaline thin-walled textura angularis, cells larger than outer cells. Hamathecium of dense, long, 0.8−1.5 µm thick, hyaline, simple, aseptate pseudoparaphyses. Asci poly-spored, bitunicate, cylindrical to clavate, very short pedicellate or sessile, apically broadly rounded, thick-walled, ocular chamber not observed. Ascospores overlapping, minute, crowded, ellipsoidal or elongate-ellipsoidal, hyaline, aseptate, smooth-walled. Asexual morph: Unknown (adapted from Thambugala et al. 2014).

Type species: Pleosphaerellula cornicola Naumov & Czerepan.

Notes: Naumov and Czerepanova (in Czerepanova & Kuznetzova 1952) classified Pleosphaerellula under Mycosphaerellaceae and did not observe interascal tissues in their original description. Tóth (1975) added the new species P. fumanae from Hungary and described some well-developed, bulky, thread-like paraphyses in younger ascomata. Pleosphaerellula fumanae differs from the type species P. cornicola in having different size and shape of ascospores. Lumbsch and Huhndorf (2010) listed Pleosphaerellula under Dothideomycetes, genera incertae sedis. Thambugala et al. (2014) observed the holotype specimen of P. cornicola from LE herbarium and referred the genus to Pleosporales, incertae sedis based on morphological similarities with Moristroma polysporum. Molecular data is lacking for Pleosphaerellula and fresh collections as well as more taxa with DNA sequence data are needed to confirm the taxonomic placement of the genus.

 

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