Coronophoraceae Höhn., Sber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Math.-naturw. Kl., Abt. 1 116: 624 (1907)

MycoBank number: MB 80647; Index Fungorum number: IF 80647; Facesoffungi number: FoF 01117; 17 species.

Saprobic on plant stems or wood in terrestrial habitats, or parasitic on other fungi. Sexual morph: Ascomata perithecial, gregarious or solitary, superficial, black, semi-immersed becoming erumpent through bark of host, ovoid to subglobose, carbonaceous, tuberculate, glabrous or with hairs, laterally collapsing when dry, sometimes with a short neck with or without ostioles or quellkörper. Peridium carbonaceous or membranaceous, composed of three layers, outer layer comprising dark tissue, carbonaceous; middle layer comprising dark brown to brown cells of textura angularis, membranaceous and the inner layer comprising hyaline cells of textura prismatica, membranaceous. Paraphyses numerous, filamentous, septate, unbranched. Asci polysporous, unitunicate, thin-walled, clavate to cylindrical, long pedicellate, apex blunt, without a visible discharge mechanism. Ascospores crowded, hyaline, cylindrical to allantoid, slightly curved, aseptate, smooth-walled, mostly with guttules. Asexual morph: Undetermined.

Type genusCoronophora Fuckel

Notes – The monotypic family Coronophoraceae was introduced by Höhnel (1907b). As a synonym of Nitschkiaceae, it had been placed in Coronophorales (Nannfeldt 1932, Müller & Arx 1973, Subramanian & Sekar 1990) or in Sordariales (Nannfeldt 1975, Barr 1990b). Mugambi & Huhndorf (2010) used a tef1 and rpb2 combined sequence dataset, which included the type species C. gregaria, to show that Coronophoraceae is distinct from Nitschkiaceae.

Species