Didymosphaeria Fuckel, Jb. nassau. Ver. Naturk. 23–24: 140 (1870).
Index Fungorum number: IF 1562; MycoBank number: MB 1562; Facesoffungi number: FoF 00036; 195 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), 4 species with molecular data.
Saprobic on woody branches and herbaceous stems and leaves. Sexual state: Ascomata solitary, scattered, or in small groups, immersed to erumpent, globose to ovoid, ostiolate. Ostiole papillate with a pore-like opening, ostiolar canal filled with hyaline cells (periphyses). Peridium 1-layered, thin, composed of brown pseudoparenchymatous cells of textura intricata. Hamathecium of dense, trabeculate, pseudoparaphyses, anastomosing mostly above the asci. Asci 8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, cylindrical, with a furcated pedicel, apically rounded with an indistinct ocular chamber. Ascospores uniseriate, ellipsoid, brown, 1-septate, wall with different ornamentations. Asexual state: see notes below.
Type species – Didymosphaeria futilis (Berk. & Broome) Rehm, Hedwigia 18: 167 (1879).
≡ Sphaeria futilis Berk. & Broome, Ann. Mag. nat. Hist., Ser. 2 9: 326 (1852).
Notes – Didymosphaeria is the type genus of Didymosphaeriaceae which was established by Fuckel (1870) to accommodate three species with two-celled ascospores. Didymosphaeria is typified by D. futilis (Berkeley & Broome 1852, Zhang et al. 2012b; Hyde et al. 2013). Species of Didymosphaeria are characterized in having a peridium consisting of flattened or irregular cells or complete hyphae, a hamathecium consisting of narrow, trabeculate paraphysoids or paraphyses, richly anastomosing above the asci, and brown, thin, distoseptate ascospores (Zhang et al. 2012b). Asexual morphs of Didymosphaeria were reported as coelomycetous, like Dendrophoma sp. or Fusicladiella species (Sivanesan 1984, Zhang et al. 2012b). Despite having 195 morphological species in Species Fungorum (2020), few species have molecular data in GenBank, thus, more collections and sequence data are needed.
Species