Microdochium Syd. & P. Syd., Annls mycol. 22(3/6): 267 (1924)

Index Fungorum number: IF 8926; MycoBank number: MB 8926; Facesoffungi number: FoF 02121; 37 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), 20 species with sequence data.

Type species – Microdochium phragmitis Syd. & P. Syd.

Notes – Microdochium (asexual morph, Monographella – sexual morph) is the type genus of Microdochiaceae and was established by Sydow (1924) with M. phragmitis as the type species, found on living leaves of Phragmites australis in Germany. Since Microdochium has more species and is more commonly encountered, and the name is more frequently used in literature, Hernández- Restrepo et al. (2016b) suggested to use Microdochium over Monographella. Microdochium species are economically important plant pathogens on grasses and cereals worldwide (Hernández-Restrepo et al. 2016b, Wijayawardene et al. 2017a, Farr & Rossman 2018). However, species identification mainly depends on multi-gene phylogenetic analyses with the prior the protein coding region tub2. Thirty-seven species have been accepted under Microdochium (Hernández-Restrepo et al. 2016b, Zhang et al. 2017c, Crous et al. 2018c, 2019b).

Microdochium phragmitis, the type species of Microdochium was isolated from leaves of Phragmites communis. Hernández-Restrepo et al. (2016b) epitypified the species and provided an ex-epitype with molecular data. However, variations among the strains and polymorphisms make it difficult to delimit species in Microdochium. This entry is illustrated with Microdochium phragmitis (Fig. 1).

Figure 1 – Microdochium phragmitis (Material examined – GERMANY, Brandenburg, Berlin, on dead leaves of Phragmites communis (Poaceae), 8 November 1919, H. Sydow, K-IMI 193888, holotype). a Herbarium details. b Host. c, d Sporodochia. e-g Conidiogenous cells and attached conidia. h-l Conidia (d, e-g, k, l in Congo red). Scale bars: 10 µm.

Species