Seimatosporium italicum

Seimatosporium italicum Q.J. Shang & K.D. Hyde, in Hyde et al., Fungal Diversity 87: 165 (2017)

Index Fungorum number: IF 553098; Facesofungi number: FoF 03190

Etymology: the specific epithet ‘‘italicum’’ refers to the country ‘‘Italy’’, where the holotype was collected.

Holotype: MFLU 17-0499.

Saprobic on bark of Crataegus. Sexual morph: Ascomata 153–289 μm high, 198–431 μm diameter (x̄ = 221 × 314 μm, n = 30), solitary or clustered, immersed in the bark, globose to subglobose, membranous, dark brown to black, top flattened, often white or reddish and sometimes slightly protruding above the substrate, usually with a narrow opening ostiole, the upper parts of ascomata, with black, short neck, easy to remove. Ostiolar canal 55–105 μm high, 59–91 μm diameter (x̄ = 80 × 75 μm, n = 10), cylindrical, sulcate, periphysate. Peridium 23–45 μm wide, 2 layered, composed of textura angularis merging with paraphyses, outer region 1-layered, composed of relatively small, heavily pigmented, thick-walled cells, inner with thin-walled hyaline cells. Paraphyses 2.6–4.1 μm wide, with some septa, anastomosing at the apex. Asci (85–) 102–129(–142) × (7.5–)8.5–10(–11) μm (x̄ = 114 × 9.5 μm, n = 50), 8-spored, unitunicate, clavate to broadly cylindrical, short pedicel or sessile, rounded at the apex. Ascospores (10.5–)12–15(–19) × (5–)5.5–7(–8) μm (x̄ = 14 × 6 μm, n = 160), ellipsoidal-fusiform, or ampulliform, multi-seriate and overlapping in the ascus, hyaline, 0-4 septate, narrowly fusoid with rounded ends, the cells above central septum often broader than the lower ones, sometimes with one vertical septum in each central cell, hyaline, smooth-walled. Asexual morph: Undetermined.

Culture characteristics: Ascospores germinating on malt extract agar (MEA) within 48 h. Germ tubes produced from all sides. Colonies on MEA reaching 1.5–2.5 cm diameter after 7 days in the dark at 25 °C, colonies circular to irregular, medium dense, flat or effuse, slightly raised, with fimbriate edge, fluffy to fairy fluffy, white from above, black from below; not producing pigments in agar.

Material examined: ITALY, Papiano—Stia (province of Arezzo [AR]), dead aerial branch of Crategus sp. (Rosaceae), 14 May 2014, E. Camporesi (MFLU 17-0499, holotype; KUNHKAS96369, isotype), ex-type living culture MFLUCC 14-1196, KUMCC 17-0135.

GenBank: ITS: MF614831, LSU: MF614829, SSU: MF614830, TEF1: MF943155.

Notes: Based on morphological and phylogenetic analyses, our isolate belongs to the genus Seimatosporium in Sporocadaceae. The morphology of ascomata, asci and ascospores of our isolate fits well with the description of the sexual morph of the genus Seimatosporium (Norphanphoun et al. 2015, Goonasekara et al. 2016, Perera et al. 2016). There is no report for the sexual morph of S. vaccinii and S. sorbi (Saccardo 1884, Goonsekara et al. 2016, Li et al. 2016a, Perera et al. 2016, Wijayawardene et al. 2016). However, phylogenetic analyses of combined LSU and ITS sequence data (Hyde et al. 2017), show that Seimatosporium italicum (MFLUCC 14-1196) separated from the sister species Seimatosporium vaccinii (ICMP 7003) and Seimatosporium sorbi (MFLUCC 14-0469) with the support (68%ML, 0.98 PP). Thus, we designed our isolate as a new taxon herein (Hyde et al. 2017).