Metarhizium – Facesoffungi number: FoF 13085

Metarhizium Sorokīn, Veg. Parasitenk. Mensch Tieren 2: 268 (1879)

MycoBank  number: MB 8912; Index Fungorum number: IF 8912; Facesoffungi number: FoF 13085; 47 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), 36 species with sequence data.

Synonyms – Chamaeleomyces = Metacordyceps = Nomuraea = Stereocrea

Type species – Metarhizium anisopliae (Metschn.) Sorokīn

Notes – This genus was emended by Rombach et al. (1987) and Kepler et al. (2014). It includes green-spored, Nomuraea (N. rileyi), several species formerly included in Paecilomyces and Chameoleomyces. The sexual morphs were described as metacordyceps-like and most species in Metacordyceps have been transferred to Metarhizium (Kepler et al. 2014), including the type species. The genus infects arthropods and nematodes, can be found in the soil, colonizes plant roots and act as endophytes, producing variously branched conidiophores without synnemata and hyaline to brown or green conidia (Kepler et al. 2014). The sexual morph is characterised by tough, whitish greenish yellow to greenish, cylindrical to enlarging stromata, partially or completely immersed perithecia and ascospores which may or may not break into part-spores (Sung et al. 2007).

Species