Apiculospora spartii Wijayaw, Li WJ, Camporesi E, Phillips AJL & KD Hyde, in Wijayawardene et al., Fungal Diversity (2016)

Index Fungorum number: IF 551762; Mycobank number: MB 551762; Facesoffungi number: FoF 01426; Fig. 1

Saprobic on dead branches of Dorycnium hirsutum L. Sexual morph: Not observed. Asexual morph: Conidiomata 145–170×130–180 μm, (x̅=152×163 μm, n=5), solitary, scattered, immersed, unilocular, subglobose, black. Peridium 18–26 μm, comprised of thick-walled, brown cells of textura angularis; inner cell layers thin-walled, almost reduced to a conidiogenesis region. Conidiophores reduced to conidiogenous cells. Conidiogenous cells 4–10×1.5–3 μm, subcylindrical to ovoid, enteroblastic, with percurrent proliferation, hyaline, smooth walled. Conidia 16–26×5–11 μm (x̅=23×9 μm, n=30), subcylindrical to ellipsoid, slightly curved, conical at apex, aseptate when immature and later become 1-septate, sometimes with a dark band at septum, occasionally constricted at septum, hyaline to pale brown when immature and later dark brown, guttulate, thick-walled, non-mucilaginous.

Culture characteristics – Culture on PDA, colonies slow growing, circular, spreading, flattened, flossy, smooth with entire edge, brown, reverse brown.

Material examined – Italy, dead branches of Dorycnium hirsutum (Fabaceae), 22 November 2013, E. Camporesi, IT 1533 (MFLU 15-0909); living culture MFLUCC 13-0246.

GenBank numbers – LSU: PP762101; ITS: PP762097; SSU: PP762148.

Notes – This isolate obtained from Italy fits with the morphological characteristics of Apiculospora comprising subcylindrical to ellipsoid conidia with a dark band at septum (Wijayawardene et al. 2016, 2021; Ekanayaka et al. 2019; Karunarathna et al. 2021). In the phylogenetic tree, our isolate clusters together with A. spartii (MFLU 15-3556, MFLU 18-1812, MFLU 18-1813) with 100% ML bootstrap. The isolate obtained in this study is morphologically similar to the type species of A. spartii but differs by the size of conidia (Wijayawardene et al. 2016). ITS and LSU sequences did not show any base pair differences suggesting that our isolate is identical to the type species of A. spartii. As A. spartii has been isolated from a dead branch of Spartium junceum from Italy (Wijayawardene et al. 2016; Ekanayaka et al. 2019) and Yucca gigantea from China (Wijayawardene et al. 2021), here We introduce A. spartii as a new host record from Dorycnium hirsutum from Italy.

Figure 1 – Apiculospora spartii (MFLU 15-0909, new host record). a, b Conidiomata on dead branches of Dorycnium hirsutum. c Longitudinal section of conidioma. d Different stages of developing conidia attach to conidiogenous cells. e–h Conidia. Scale bars: c, d=50 μm, e–h=20 μm