Periconia cortaderiae Thambugala & K.D. Hyde, in Thambugala et al., Mycosphere 8(4): 734 (2017)

Index Fungorum number: IF 553165; MycoBank number: MB 553165; Facesoffungi number: FoF03226; Fig. 1

Saprobic on decaying leaves of Musa basjoo. Sexual morph: Not obersved. Asexual morph: hyphomycetous. Colonies on host black, powdery, conidial masses are clearly visible on the host. Mycelium sub hyaline to pale brown or brown branched, having black conidial clusters Conidiophores 60–130×3−4 μm (x̄=76.5×3.5 μm, n=15), macronematous, mononematous, appear as single or a cluster, erect, rough-walled, sub hyaline, brown to dark brown, septate at some points, significantly branched and flexuous. Conidiogenesis can be observed at the apices of the branches or from the middle of the conidiophores. Conidiogenous cells 3.5–4.5 μm × 2.5–3.5 μm (x̄=3.5 × 2.8 μm, n=10), annellidic, monoblastic, discrete on the stipe, percurrent proliferations present as scars at the apex of the conidiophore. Conidia 4–8×4–7 μm (x̄=6.8×6.2 μm, n=40), appear as chains or single, globose, one-celled, immature conidia are hyaline to pale brown, mature conidia are brown to dark brown, smooth or minutely verruculose, thick- walled.

Culture characteristics – Conidia germinating on PDA within 36–48 h. Colonies on PDA, reach 15 mm after 18 days at 25 °C, at maturity, unevenly distributed radial furrows or linear marks were observed, surface notably rough at maturity with crenulate to crenate margin, the colony is completely black and powdery at maturity, moderately  dense, reverse white to black.

Material examined – Russia, Krasnodar region, Sochi, Khstinsky City District, M.V. Frunze Health Care Resort, park, on a dying leafstalk of Musa basjoo Siebold & Zucc. ex Iinuma (Musaceae), 15 October 2018, Timur S. Bulgakov, BNR-001 (MFLU 18–1896), living culture MFLUCC 22-0178.

Known hosts – Cortaderia sp. (Poaceae, Monocotyledon) (Thambugala et al. 2017); on Caragana arborescens (Fabaceae, Dicotyledon) (Phookamsak et al. 2019); on Musa sp. (Musaceae, Monocotyledon) (Samarakoon et al. 2021 and this study).

Distribution – From Russia (This study), from Thailand (Thambugala et al. 2017, Samarakoon et al. 2021; this study), from Yunnan, China (Phookamsak et al. 2019)

GenBank numbers – OP097674 (LSU), OP099358 (SSU), OP099551 (ITS), OP113822 (tef1)

Notes – Based on BLASTn search results of SSU, LSU, ITS sequence data, MFLUCC 22-0178, showed high similarity to Periconia cortaderiae (MFLUCC 18-0668) as follows; SSU = 99.76%, LSU = 99.88%, ITS = 99.80%. Our new collection is similar to the holotype of P. cortaderiae (Thambugala et al. 2017), except the length and the shape of the conidiophores. Our collection has short conidiophores with respect to the holotype (60–130×3–4 μm vs. 400–800×4–9.4 μm). The conidiophore of our strain is notably curved and branched compared to other collections. The conidiogenesis is also found as terminal and intercalary on the conidiophores in our strain. The other collections of P. cortaderiae only had terminal conidial formation with respect to our finding. There is no significant difference in the nucleotide base pair comparison of our strain with the ex-type strain. In our multigene phylogeny, MFLUCC 22-0178 grouped with P. cortaderiae (MFLUCC 15-0451, MFLUCC 18-0668, MFLUCC 20-0236) with strong statistical support (ML=100%, BYPP=1.00). In this study, we identify our new collection as P. cortaderiae, from Musa sp. (Monocotyledon), from Russia for the first time as a new geographical record.

Figure 1 – Periconia cortaderiae (MFLU 18–1896, new host and geographical record). a−b Colonies on host c−f, i, j Conidiophores bearing conidia g, h, k Conidiogenesis from terminal and intercalary parts of the conidiophore l-p Conidial chains and conidia. Scale bars: a=3 mm, b=3.5 mm, c=50 μm, e−j=15 μm, d, k−p=5 μm