Zopfia
Zopfia Rabenh., Fungi europ. exsicc.: no. 1734 (1874).
Index Fungorum number: IF 5875; Facesoffungi number: FoF 08391, 5 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2022), 1 species with molecular data.
Saprobic on host. Sexual morph: Ascomata relatively large, thick-walled, solitary or clustered, superficial and partially erumpent, carbonaceous, dark brown to black, subglobose to globose, rounded above, dark brown to black, non-ostiolate, breaking on top of ascomata to release ascospores at maturity. Peridium thick, comprising two-layers, outer layer composed of pigmented thick-walled cells of textura angularis, inner layer composed of hyaline thin-walled cells of textura angularis. Hamathecium comprising numerous, filamentous, septate, branched, anastomosing, hyaline pseudoparaphyses, embedded in a gelatinous matrix. Asci 8-spored, thick-walled, bitunicate, globose or saccate, dissolving at maturity. Ascospores 3–4-seriate, oblong to ellipsoid, hyaline or yellow, to brown when immature, completely black at maturity, uniseptate in the centre, constricted and dark at the septum, with umbonate ends, smooth-walled or slightly roughened. Asexual morph: Unknown (adapted from Hyde et al. 2013).
Type species: Zopfia rhizophila Rabenh.
Notes: Zopfia is characterised by superficial and partially erumpent ascomata, bitunicate, globose or saccate asci and ellipsoid, hyaline or yellow, uniseptate ascospores. Saccardo (1882) and Winter (1887) treated Zopfia in Perisporiaceae. Arnaud (1913) accommodated it in a new family Zopfiaceae. Hawksworth and Booth (1974) broadened the generic concept of Zopfia and considered ascospore size and ornamentation as significant characters to delineate species and treated several genera such as Celtidia, Lepidosphaeria, Marchaliella, Neotestudina, Pontoporeia, Pseudophaeotrichum, Rechingeriella, Richonia and Testudina as synonyms of Zopfia. Hawksworth (1979) narrowed the generic concept of Zopfia and included species characterised byuniseptate ascospores, apiculate at both ends, smooth-walled with little irregular pitting that is usually observed by SEM and which is larger in size as compared to members of Zopfia sensu Hawksworth and Booth (1974). Hawksworth (1979) accepted three species namely Z. albiziae, Z. biturbinata and Z. rhizophila. In the phylogenetic analysis of Kruys et al. (2006) and Schoch et al. (2009), a strain of Z. rhizophila from unverified DNA sequence data clustered close to members in Delitschiaceae with low statistical support. Zopfia is morphologically and phylogenetically a distinct genus in Zopfiaceae. Molecular data (LSU and SSU) is available only for Z. rhizophila in GenBank (2022). More collections with sequence data are needed to confirm the natural placement of Zopfia.
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