Euantennariaceae S. Hughes & Corlett ex S. Hughes, N.Z. Jl Bot. 10: 238 (1972).
MycoBank number: MB 81674; Index Fungorum number: IF 81674; Facesoffungi number: FoF 06932, 23 species.
Parasitic on pine needles or leaves of others plants. Mycelium superficial, dark, frequently with erect branches. Hyphae straight to irregularly curved, occasionally anastomosing, septate, finely or coarsely rough-walled, pale brown to brown, some species formed on one cell-thick plate. Hyphal appendages on ascomata cylindrical, brown, obtuse, sometimes septate, verrucose. Sexual morph: Ascomata perithecia, scattered, or in groups, superficial or immersed on/in hyphae, subglobose, membranous, brown to dark brown, or black, ostiolate without periphysoids. Peridium thick, comprises one layer of dark brown cells of textura angularis. Hamathecium pseudoparaphyses present or absent. Asci 4–8-spored, bitunicate, fasciculate, ellipsoid to broadly ellipsoid, thin-walled, sessile, with an ocular chamber. Ascospores 2–3-seriate to irregularly arranged in asci, ellipsoid to fusiform, sometimes wider at above the middle, think-walled, pale brown to dark brown, 3–multi-septate, or dictyoseptate, constricted at the septa, smooth-walled. Asexual morph: Undetermined.
Type – Euantennaria Speg.
Notes – Euantennariaceae is a sooty mould family that was established by Hughes (1972). Species in this family share some characters with Metacapnodiaceae in its ellipsoidal asci and ellipsoidal ascospores. Euantennariaceae however, differs from Metacapnodiaceae in lacking periphysoids (Eriksson 1981). Wijayawardene et al. (2012) listed Antennatula, Capnokyma, Hormisciomyces, Plokamidomyces, Racodium and Trichothallus as asexual genera in Euantennariaceae. The family contained ten genera in Hyde et al. (2013). Currently, seven genera are accepted in Euantennariaceae because Plokamidomyces was synonymized under Trichothallus (Rossman et al. 2016) and Trichopeltheca and Racodium were transferred to Trichopeltinaceae and Racodiaceae, respectively (Hongsanan et al. 2014a, Lücking et al. 2017, Wijayawardene et al. 2017a). Sugiyama & Hosoya (2019) introduced a new species of Antennatula based on asexual characters and mentioned Antennatula as a genus in Euantennariaceae. However, we do not accept this genus in Euantennariaceae due to lack of sequence data and sexual characters undetermined (Wijayawardene et al. 2017b).
Winton et al. (2007) provided sequence data from two species of Rasutoria to represent the phylogenetic placement of Euantennariaceae. By using three-loci analysis (ITS, LSU and SSU), two species of Rasutoria were confirmed in Capnodiales, but clustered within Mycosphaerellaceae (Winton et al. 2007, Hyde et al. 2013, Chomnunti et al. 2014). Wijayawardene et al. (2017a) treated Euantennariaceae as family incertae sedis in Dothideomycetes. Euantennariaceae and Mycosphaerellaceae could not be well-separated by phylogeny and Rasutoria shares some characters with some species in Mycosphaerellaceae (i.e. species in Phaeocryptopus and Mycosphaerella). Due to lack of sequence data of the type species of Euantennaria, the familial status of Euantennariaceae in Capnodiales is retained based on its sooty mould life style and other unique characters.