Nigrogranaceae Jaklitsch & Voglmayr, Stud. Mycol. 85: 54 (2016).
MycoBank number: MB 817780; Index Fungorum number: IF 817780; Facesoffungi number: FoF 08317, 16 species.
Saprobic on decayed twigs of shrubs and trees in terrestrial habitats, sometimes can be endophytic or human pathogenic. Sexual morph: Ascomata immersed-erumpent, sometimes superficial, scattered or aggregated, globose to sub-globose, black, usually seated on or surrounded by a subiculum, ostiolate. Ostiole papillate to cylindrical; periphysate. Peridium pseudoparenchymatous. Hamathecium comprising cellular, septate and branched pseudoparaphyses. Asci 8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, cylindric clavate to broadly clavate, with a knob-like pedicel, and a shallow ocular chamber at rounded apex. Ascospores 2-seriate, fusoid to narrowly ellipsoid, straight or slightly curved, pale to chocolate brown, mostly 1–3-septate, smooth-walled or faintly verruculose. Asexual morph: pyrenochaeta-like, Conidiomata pycnidial, globose, ostiolate. Peridium brown, pseudoparenchymatous. Conidiophores when present filiform, simple to sparsely branched, with pegs and terminal phialides. Phialides ampulliform, lageniform, or subcylindrical. Conidia forming on pegs and phialides, rod-like to ellipsoid, hyaline or subhyaline, sometimes pale brown in mass, asaptate, smooth-walled (adapted from Jaklitsch & Voglmayr 2016).
Type – Nigrograna Gruyter, Verkley & Crous.
Notes – Nigrogranaceae was introduced to accommodate three new species of Nigrograna. Jaklitsch & Voglmayr (2016) doubted the validity of the strain of B. marina (type of Biatriosporaceae) in GenBank. In their multi-gene phylogenetic analyses, strains of Biatriospora mackinnonii grouped in Nigrograna. Therefore, they dismissed Biatriosporaceae, and transferred Biatriospora species to Nigrograna. However, based on the type species, Hyde et al. (2017) argued that Biatriosporaceae is distinct and the family should be maintained. Nevertheless, B. marina needs recollecting for sequence analysis to establish if Nigrograna is related, which seems unlikely.
Genera