Koralionastetaceae Kohlm. & Volkm.-Kohlm., Mycologia 79(5): 764 (1987)
MycoBank number: MB 82025; Index Fungorum number: IF 82025; Facesoffungi number: FoF 01391; 13 species.
Saprobic on coralline covered rocks, sponges or on algae, found in marine habitats. Sexual morph: Ascomata black, subglobose, ovoid or ellipsoidal, superficial, ostiolate, papillate or epapillate, periphysate, subiculate, or without subiculum. Paraphyses simple, septate. Asci 8- spored, unitunicate, clavate to ellipsoidal or fusiform, pedicellate, deliquescent. Ascospores overlapping, hyaline, ellipsoidal to fusiform, multi-septate near the apices, or filiform and evenly multi-septate, thick or thin walled, germinating apically, lacking appendages. Reproductive structures: Spermatia enteroblastic, subglobose.
Type genus – Koralionastes Kohlm. & Volkm.-Kohlm.
Notes – Koralionastetaceae currently comprises 13 species (five Koralionastes species and eight Pontogeneia species) (Wijayawardene et al. 2017a). The family was introduced by Kohlmeyer & Volkmann-Kohlmeyer (1987) to include a single genus, Koralionastes. Pontogeneia was introduced by Kohlmeyer (1975) for five perithecial ascomycetes. Koralionastetaceae is characterized by thick-walled ascospores that germinate into hyphae bearing phialidic antheridia with enteroblastic spermatia. Earlier the ordinal and higher classification of Koralionastetaceae was unresolved and Koralionastes was placed under Ascomycota genera incertae sedis (Eriksson 2006). Based on a phylogenetic study with SSU and LSU sequence data, the genera Koralionastes and Pontogeneia were assigned to Koralionastetales which is a sister group to Lulworthiales (Campbell et al. 2009). The subclass Lulworthiomycetidae was introduced to accommodate Lulworthiales and Koralionastetales based on combined sequence data by Maharachchikumbura et al. (2015).
Genera