Lophiohelichrysum
Lophiohelichrysum Dayar., Camporesi & K.D. Hyde, in Ariyawansa et al., Fungal Diversity: 10.1007/s13225-015-0346-5, [59] (2015)
Amniculicolaceae
Index Fungorum number: IF 551400; Facesofungi number: FoF 00913
Etymology: In reference to a new genus in Lophiostomataceae and its host genus Helichrysum.
Saprobic on dead plant stems. Sexual morph: Ascomata scattered to gregarious, semi-immersed to erumpent, coriaceous, dark brown to black, globose to subglobose, ostiolate, periphysate. Ostiole slit-like, with a flat, crest-like apex. Peridium comprising 4–5 layers of brown cells, arranged in a textura angularis, fusing at the outside with the host cells, where cells are occluded and black. Hamathecium comprising numerous, 0.5–1.5 μm wide, aseptate, long, filiform pseudoparaphyses, embedded in gelatinous matrix. Asci 8-spored, bitunicate, cylindric-clavate, pedicellate, rounded at the apex, with an ocular chamber. Ascospores overlapping biseriate, hyaline, faintly brown when mature, fusiform, 1-septate, asymmetrical, upper cell wider than lower cell. Asexual morph: undetermined.
Type species: Lophiohelichrysum helichrysi Dayarathne, Camporesi & K.D. Hyde
Notes: Lophiohelichrysum is clearly different from other genera of the family Lophiostomataceae based on molecular data and morphological characters. This monotypic genus is introduced to accommodate taxa characterized by semi-immersed to erumpent ascomata, with a flat, crest-like apex, and fusiform, 1-septate, hyaline ascospores. It differs from Lophiostoma macrostomum, the type of Lophiostoma having coriaceous ascomata, a peridium of textura angularis, 1-septate, asymmetrical, hyaline to faintly brown ascospores, lacking appendages (Thambugala et al. 2015).
References:
Ariyawansa HA, Hyde KD, Jayasiri SC, Buyck B et al. 2015 – Fungal diversity notes 111–252-taxonomic and phylogenetic contributions to fungal taxa. Fungal diversity: an international journal of mycology 75, 27–4.
Thambugala KM, Hyde KD, Tanaka K, Tian Q, et al. 2015 – Towards a natural classification and backbone tree for Lophiostomataceae, Floricolaceae, and Amorosiaceae fam. nov. Fungal Diversity 74, 199–266.