Melanospora – Facesoffungi number: FoF 01804

Melanospora Corda, Icon. fung. (Prague) 1: 24 (1837)

MycoBank number: MB 3085; Index Fungorum number: IF 3085; Facesoffungi number: FoF 01804; 69 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), 9 species with sequence data.

Type species – Melanospora zamiae Corda

Notes – Melanospora was established by Corda (1837) to accommodate Ceratostoma chioneum (= Melanospora chionea) and two new species, Melanospora zamiae and M. leucotricha, with the former chosen as the type species (Kowalski 1965). Melanospora is the largest genus of this family. Most Melanospora species are parasitic and associated with a wide host range, such as basidiomycetes, sexual and asexual ascomycetes, as well as with other fungi and some species obtain nutrients by fusing with the host protoplasts, an interaction called fusion biotrophism (Jeffries & Young 1994, Sun et al. 2019). Harveson (1999) reported Melanospora species as potential biocontrol agents, which can grow on pathogenic fungi. This genus is distinguished by translucent ascomata with a neck composed of intermixed hyphae and with an apical crown of setae, and smooth or ornamented ascospores with an apiculate germ pore at each end, and a phialidic asexual morph (Marin-Felix et al. 2018). The morphologically similar genera to Melanospora and other genera in Ceratostomataceae was re-examined and discussed in Marin- Felix et al. (2018).

Species