Parmulariaceae E. Müll. & Arx ex M.E. Barr, Mycologia 71(5): 944 (1979).

MycoBank number: MB 81109Index Fungorum number: IF 81109; Facesoffungi number: FoF 02296, 149 species.

Epiphytic or parasitic on living leaves of plants and ferns or thallus of lichens. Colonies foliicolous, superficial, dark brown to black. Hyphae spreading out from ascomata border, brown, septate, branching, sinuous, with or lacking appressoria. Sexual morph: Ascostromata solitary to gregarious, or in groups, superficial to immersed, shield-like to star-shaped, elliptical to boat-shaped, dark brown to black, carbonaceous to membranaceous, strongly flated, or longitudinal slits slightly protuberant, and contain numerous asci. Locules immersed in ascostromata or in longitudinal ridges radiating from the centre. Stromata wall thin to thick, composed of black, large cells of textura prismatica. Peridium of locules thin to thick, composed of dark brown to hyaline smaller cells of textura angularis. Hamathecium comprising dark brown to hyaline, septate, pseudoparaphyses present or absent. Asci 8-spored, thick-walled, bitunicate, long ovate, broad cylindrical, broad-clavate, or obclavate, globose to subglobose, short pedicellate, with a distinct ocular chamber. Ascospores 2–multi-seriate, oblong to ellipsoid, ellipsoid to ovate, hyaline to dark brown, 1-septate, wall smooth to verrucose. Asexual morph: Undetermined.

Type: Parmularia Lév.

Notes: Parmulariaceae was invalidly introduced by Müller and von Arx (1962) for taxa with colonies growing on the surface of living plant tissues, mostly leaves, and later was validated by Barr (1979a). The family contains a range of ascomata types, asci and ascospores forms (Inácio and Cannon 2008). von Arx and Müller (1975) accepted 27 genera in this family and Lumbsch and Huhndorf (2007) included 34 genera. Inácio and Cannon (2008) excluded Chaetaspis and Kentigia, with 34 genera accepted. Hyde et al. (2013) accepted 30 genera including a new genus Antoniomyces, which was erected by Inácio et al. (2012). Placostromella was re-described by Thambugala et al. (2014b) and transferred to this family. Placoasterella and Placosoma were transfered to Parmulariaceae, as they were similar to taxa in this family (Hongsanan et al. 2014b). Pleiostomellina was referred by Ariyawansa et al. (2014). Dictyocyclus was moved to Myriangiaceae based on morphological similarity (Dissanayake et al. 2014). Wijayawardene et al. (2014a) accepted 34 genera in Parmulariaceae. Wu et al. (2014) re-examined the holotype specimen of the type species of Cirsosiopsis and transferred the genus to Parmulariaceae based on its morphology. A new genus Rhagadolobiopsis was introduced by Guatimosim et al. (2014) and Jayasiri et al. (2016) re-examined herbarium of type species of Cocconia Sacc. and confirmed its placement within Parmulariaceae. Dai et al. (2018) excluded Hemigrapha, introducing Hemigraphaceae to accommodate it and re-examined Inocyclus, moving it to Asterinales genera incertae sedis based on the morphology and phylogenetic analysis. Doilom et al. (2018) transferred Syrropeltis to Parmulariaceae based on morphology. Thus, 34 genera are accepted in Parmulariaceae. Parmulariaceae is close to Asterinaceae, but differs in having ascostromata formed by several layers of pigmented cells, pseudoparaphyses, broadly ellipsoidal to obclavate asci, and lacks appressoria (Inácio and Cannon 2008; Inácio et al. 2012). Species of Asterinaceae have superficial hyphae mostly with appressoria, thyriothecia with a thin upper wall layer and poorly developed base and subglobose asci (Pirozynski and Shoemaker 1970; Inácio et al. 2012; Hongsanan et al. 2014b).