Meliolina Syd. & P. Syd., Annls mycol. 12(6): 553 (1914). Index Fungorum number: IF 3105; Facesoffungi number FoF06890; 49 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), 1 species with molecular data.
Type species: Meliolina cladotricha (Lév.) Syd. & P. Syd.
Notes: Meliolina species produce thick, spongy, hypophyllous colonies that predominantly infect Myrtaceae plants. Stevens (1927, 1928) included the genus in Meliolaceae. Eriksson (1981) postulated that Meliolaceae and Meliolina may share a common ancestry, but the result from Saenz and Taylor (1999) demonstrated that Meliolina is phylogenetically distant from Meliolaceae. However, Hyde et al. (2013) treated this genus as a member of Meliolales based on morphology. There are several morphological differences between Meliola and Meliolina. Meliola species produce haustoria from capitate hyphopodia, while Meliolina species penetrate the host by stomatopodia (Hansford 1946; Hughes 1993) and develop internal hyphae. The superficial mycelium of Meliola develops directly from an ascospore, while the superficial mycelium of Meliolina is the result of egress cells which grow out of leaf stomata and produce mini-colonies of superficial hyphae (Hughes 1993). Meliola produce phialospores by possessing sessile phialides (mucronate hyphopodia) which are produced directly from the superficial hyphae, while Meliolina produces setiform phialides which are produced from arborescent branches of the superficial hyphae (Hughes 1981; Reynolds 1989; Mueller et al. 1991). Meliolina usually forms eight ascospores per ascus (Hughes 1993), whereas Meliola never produces eight mature ascospores within an ascus (Stevens 1925; Hansford 1961; Hongsanan et al. 2015d). The ascospores of Meliolina usually display hyaline subterminal bands, which are never found in Meliola.
Species