Valsariales » Valsariaceae

Valsaria

Valsaria Ces. & De Not., Comm. Soc. crittog. Ital. 1(fasc. 4): 205 (1863).

Index Fungorum number: IF 5704; Facesoffungi number: FoF 06562, 33 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2022), 6 species with molecular data.

Saprobic on hosts. Sexual morph: Stromata pseudostromatic, immersed erumpent from bark to superficial on wood, scattered or gregarious to coalescing into variable clusters; pustular, broadly conical or subglobose; enclosed on top and/or at the sides by a black pseudoparenchymatous crust spreading around the base and blackening the wood surface between adjacent stromata. Stroma surface usually irregularly tubercular, sometimes cerebriform. Ectostroma frequently forming substellate or inversely stellate structures around the inconspicuous ostiolar openings, consisting of 3–5 greyish, olivaceous brown to dull black, sharply delimited tubercular segments with a depressed centre; sometimes reduced or absent and replaced by a smooth cupulate surface partly roughened by the ostiolar papillae; the tissue just beneath the black crust pseudoparenchymatous, a soft greyish to brown textura angularis of small and thin-walled cells; the tissue between ostiolar necks and at the stromatal base prosenchymatous, grey, soft, forming a textura intricata of hyaline to subhyaline, 2–4 μm wide hyphae, often mixed with bark cells; tissue between ascomata typically absent. Ascomata monostichously arranged in valsoid configuration, 4–12(−20) per individual cluster, vertically to obliquely arranged, subglobose to flask-shaped, typically laterally collapsed when dry; peridium consisting of pale brown flattened cells, turning darker towards the outside. Ostiolar necks long, cylindrical, converging and often fusing, i.e. ostiolar opening at the surface eventually containing necks of 1–3(−5) ascomata; ostiolar wall of pale brown, small, thin to moderately thick-walled angular cells; interior densely periphysate. Ostiolar openings usually inconspicuous at the surface, less commonly necks arising as stout but fragile, conical, more or less sulcate, shiny black columns. Paraphyses numerous, simple, unbranched, tapering upwards, apically free. Asci bitunicate but without obvious fissitunicate dehiscence, cylindrical, containing (4–)6–8 uniseriate ascospores; with a short pedicel and a thick apex containing an ocular chamber and a more or less pulvinate ring staining in Congo Red. Ascospores ellipsoid, dark brown, 2-celled, with a dark central, non-constricted to distinctly constricted septum thicker than the wall; with finely tuberculate, dotted or reticulate surface ornamentation. Asexual morph on natural substrates: when present, interpretable as multiloculate pycnidia. Locules present at upper levels of young sexual stromata, or stromata exclusively containing irregularly arranged locules or meandering paths. Walls of locules lined by dense palisades of phialides in variable whorls on short cylindrical, few-celled hyaline conidiophores. Phialides lageniform to cylindrical, straight to sinuous, often inequilateral; Conidia also formed on aphanophialides (lateral pegs on or below phialides producing conidia). Conidia numerous, oblong, allantoid, ellipsoid or bullet-shaped, rarely subglobose, 1-celled, hyaline, smooth, with inconspicuous guttules and indistinct or truncate scar (adapted from Jaklitsch et al. 2015).

Type species: Valsaria insitiva (Tode) Ces. & De Not.

Notes: Valsaria is uniquely characterised by inversely stellate ectostromatic structure with more or less basal ascomata with generally little hypostroma. Asci usually contains 6–8 ascospores and sometimes 4-spored asci are present in partly developed ascomata. Valsaria also has an ascal apical ring which is invisible in KOH and in Congo Red. After treatment with KOH, the ascal apical ring becomes pigmented or sometimes not pigmented but it can enlarge perpendicularly. Ascospores become distorted and swollen in 3% KOH (Jaklitsch et al. 2015). The asexual morph is often characterised by budding conidia. Morphological characters of Valsaria species are overlapping and DNA sequence data is essential to delineate them. Molecular markers available for Valsaria are ITS, LSU, SSU, RPB2 and TEF-1. We could not loan the epitype specimen of V. insitiva designated by Jaklitsch et al. (2015). We illustrate Valsaria with the holotype specimen V. citri, the basionym of the type specimen V. insitiva. The measurement of the morphological characters (stromata, ascomata, pseudoparaphyses, peridium, ascospores) of this specimen V. citri (S, F5674!), is in agreement with the epitype of V. insitiva (Jaklitsch et al. 2015), but the asci are smaller than those of V. insitiva (65–90 μm × 10–15 μm vs. 96−158 μm × 10–18.5 μm).

 

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