Penicillium lanosocoeruleum Thom, Penicillia: 322. 1930.

Index Fungorum number: IF 268949; Mycobank number: MB 268949; Facesoffungi number: FoF 16047 Fig. 1

Holotype – CBS 215.30

Saprobic on soil. Sexual morph: Not observed. Asexual morph: Conidiophores predominantly terverticillate, borne from surface or aerial hyphae; Stipes rough-walled, commonly 100–550 µm ×1.5–2.0 µm; Metulae in verticils of 3–4, large, 8–12×2.5–3.0 µm, appressed; Phialides ampulliform, 6–9×2.0–2.5 µm, in verticils of 2–5; Conidia smooth, sub globose to ellipsoidal, commonly 3.0–4.0×2.5–3.0 µm, long, rather irregular columns.

Culture characteristics – Colonies growing after 7 days at 25±2 °C on following agar media: CYA colonies fast growing, radially sulcate, highly umbonate, velutinous, mycelia white (1A1), 31–34 mm in diam.; margins regular, deep; sporulation cream (4A3); exudate colorless to pale yellow (1A2) droplets; soluble pigment absent; reverse radially sulcate, melon (5A6) to maize yellow (4A6) entire. MEA colonies fast growing, velutinous, slightly umbonate with presence of concentric rings, raised, mycelia white (1A1); 34–37 mm in diam.; margins regular, deep; sporulation deep green (28E8) at centre, greyish green (28C6–26C4); exudates colorless to pale yellow (1A2) droplets; soluble pigments absent; reverse radially sulcate, melon (5A6) to maize yellow (4A6) entire. CYAS colonies medium-growing, velutinous, radially sulcate, umbonate, mycelia white (1A1), 26–28 mm in diam.; margin regular, deep; sporulation dark green (27F6); exudates absent; soluble pigments absent; reverse radially sulcate, pale yellow (3A3) entire. OA colonies medium-growing, powdery with concentric rings, mycelia white (1A1), 24–25 mm in diam.; margin regular, deep; sporulation greyish green (27E6); exudates present in form of colourless droplets; soluble pigments absent; reverse clay (5D5) at centre, yellowish white (3A2), pale green (29A3), greyish green (27B4) towards periphery, white (1A1) margin. CZ colonies slow-growing, powdery, flat, mycelia white (1A1), 12–13 mm in diam.; margin irregular; sporulation cream(4A3); exudates absent; soluble pigments absent; reverse greyish orange (5B3) at centre, white (1A1) towards periphery. DG18 colonies slow-growing, lanose, mycelium white (1A1), 15–16 mm diam.; margin irregular; sporulation greenish white (26A2); exudates absent; soluble pigments absent; reverse white (1A1) entire. YES colonies medium-growing, velutinous, radially sulcate, highly umbonate, mycelia greenish white (26A2), 34–38 mm diam.; margin regular, thin; sporulation dark green (26F6) at centre, dull green (26E4) to pale green (26A3) towards periphery; exudates in form of small colourless droplets; soluble pigments absent; reverse radially sulcate, butter yellow (4A5) at centre, pastel yellow (3A4) to pale yellow (3A3) towards periphery. CREA colonies medium-growing, velutinous with concentric rings, white (1A2) mycelia, 24–25 mm in diam.; margin irregular; sporulation pastel green (26A4) to dull green (26D4); reverse cream (4A3) at centre, pale yellow (1A2) towards periphery; acid production present.

Material examined – India, Maharashtra, Mahableshwar, (17°92′18″N, 73°68′70″E), from soil sample, 18 July 2017, Nikhil Ashtekar and Rajeshkumar K.C., living culture NFCCI 5282.

Hosts and distribution – Ethiopia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Poland, (Świzdor 2013; Świzdor et al. 2018; Dijksterhuis et al. 2019; Corrado et al. 2021; Allawi and Al-Taee 2022).

GenBank numbers – NFCCI 5282: ITS = OK342120, BenA=OL652653, CaM=OM948800, rpb2=OL652657.

Notes – Based on a concatenated phylogenetic analysis of the ITS, BenA, CaM, and rpb2 gene regions, the isolated strain of P. lanosocoeruleum (NFCCI 5282) aligns with the type strain of P. lanosocoeruleum (CBS 215.30). Morphologically, both strains share the same characteristics such terverticillate conidiophores with rough-walled stipe, ampulliform phialides, ellipsoidal conidia with smooth ornamentation. Further, both the colonies show presence of exudates on YES media. Hence, the macromorphological and micromorphological characteristics of the isolated species match with the type species, P. lanosocoeruleum (CBS 215.30). However, P. lanosocoeruleum has not been reported from India and this is the first report (Fig. 2).

Figure 1 – Penicilliumlanosocoeruleum (NFCCI 5282). a, b Colonies after 7d at 25±2 °C on CYA and MEA obverse and reverse. c CREA obverse. d CYAS obverse. e CZA obverse. f DG18 obverse. g OA (natural) obverse. h YES obverse. i–k terverticillate conidiophore. l Conidia. Scale bar: i–l=10 μm

Figure 2 – The best scoring RAxML tree for the combined dataset of ITS, BenA, CaM, and rpb2 sequence data of Penicillium section Fasciculata and the topology and clade stability of the combined gene analyses was not significantly different from the single gene analyses. The matrix had 294 distinct alignment patterns with 2.16% undetermined characters and gaps. Estimated base frequencies were as follows; A=0.233025, C=0.269312, G=0.252538, T=0.245125; substitution rates AC=1.178250, AG=2.934410, AT=0.943193, CG=0.732874, CT=8.010509, GT=1.000000; gamma distribution shape parameter α=0.843671. Bootstrap support values for ML equal to or greater than 70%, Bayesian posterior probabilities (PP) equal to or greater than 0.90 are shown as ML/PP at the nodes. The tree is rooted to Penicillium expansum (ATCC 7861). The newly generated sequences are indicated in blue bold