Paraphoma Morgan-Jones & J.F. White, Mycotaxon 18(1): 58 (1983).
MycoBank number: MB 25835; Index Fungorum number: IF 25835; Facesoffungi number: FoF 00259; 10 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), 10 species with molecular data.
Type species – Paraphoma radicina (McAlpine) Morgan-Jones & J.F. White, Mycotaxon 18(1): 60 (1983).
≡ Pyrenochaeta radicina McAlpine, Fungus Diseases of stone-fruit trees in Australia: 127 (1902).
Saprobic and parasitic on many substrates in aquatic or terrestrial environment. Sexual morph: Not observed. Asexual morph: Coelomycetous. Conidiomata pycnidial, solitary to aggregated, partially setae, superficial to immersed, brown to dark brown, spherical to subglobose, uniloculate. Conidiomatal wall composed of 2–6 layers of hyaline to brown cells of textura angularis. Conidiogenous cells formed from the inner layer of the conidiomatal wall, lageniform, monophalidic, translucent to somewhat translucent, and discrete. Conidia diversified shape, oval to rod-like, 0–3 septate, smooth, hyaline. Chlamydospores unicellular.
Notes – Paraphoma, typified by P. radicina, was initially introduced by Morgan-Jones et al. (1983), to accommodate the species that produced numerous setae on pycnidia. However, the discovery of new specimens has demonstrated that the original genus-level characteristics are inadequate to account for the full diversity of existing species. Paraphoma dioscoreae, P. melnikiae, and P. populi lack setae, while the conidia of P. melnikiae and P. convolvuli are distinguished by the presence of septa (Quaedvlieg et al. 2013, Gomzhina et al. 2020). To date, this genus comprises 15 documented species, which are typically associated with root diseases and necrotic leaf spots on ornamental and herbaceous plants (Phookamsak et al. 2014, Gomzhina et al. 2020, Crous et al. 2021, Guarnaccia et al. 2022).
Species