Heracleicola Tibpromma, Camporesi & K.D. Hyde.
Index Fungorum number: IF551380; Facesoffungi number: FoF00921
Etymology – refers to the host genus.
Saprobic on decaying plant stems. Sexual morph: Ascomata immersed, visible as shiny, raised dots on the host surface, vase – like, solitary or scattered, with central short papilla, dark brown to black. Peridium a single stratum, comprising relatively large, thick – walled, dark brown cells of textura angularis to textura globulosa. Hamathecium comprising numerous, 0.7 – 1.3 μm wide, long, filiform, frequently anastomosing, cellular, pseudoparaphyses. Asci 8 – spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, cylindric-clavate, short pedicellate, rounded at the apex, with a wide, shallow, ocular chamber. Ascospores overlapping 1 – 2 – seriate, hyaline, 3 – septate, fusiform, cell above central septum often enlarged, constricted at the septum. Asexual morph: undetermined.
Type species – Heracleicola premilcurensis Tibpromma, Camporesi & K.D. Hyde
Notes – Molecular data places Heracleicola in the family Didymellaceae with moderate support (Fig. 1). Its closest relatives are Didymella rabiei and Phoma medicaginis. Heracleicola is however, distinct in its vase-shaped ascomata and 4-celled hyaline ascospores and forms a distant clade from Didymella sensu stricto.
Fig. 1 Phylogram generated from maximum likelihood analysis based on combined LSU, SSU and ITS sequenced data of the family Didymellaceae. Maximum likelihood bootstrap support values greater than 50 % are near the nodes. The ex – type strains are in bold and the new isolates are in blue. The tree is rooted with Phaeosphaeria oryzae CBS 110110.
Species