Pezicula Tul. & C. Tul., Select. fung. carpol. (Paris) 3: 182 (1865)

Index Fungorum Number: IF 3858

Pezicula Tul. & C. Tul. (Leotiomycetes, Helotiales, Dermateaceae), a widespread discomycete genus typified by Peziza carpinea Pers., was established by Tulasne & Tulasne (1865). Verkley (1999) accepted 26 species in Pezicula. Subsequently, two new species and nine new combinations have been added to the genus (Johnston et al. 2014, Yuan & Verkley 2015, Zhong et al. 2001) (Fig. 1).

Pezicula species are characterized mainly by brightly coloured apothecia, which occur on the bark of woody plants (Ooki et al. 2003). The apothecia are frequently sessile, erumpent, and occasionally short-stalked with circular discs (Verkley 1999). The disc, initially concave and surrounded by slightly elevated margins, later becomes convex in most species (Verkley 1999). Most Pezicula species have 8-spored, clavate, or cylindric-clavate inoperculate asci. Ascospores vary in shape from broadly ellipsoid to elongately ellipsoid to allantoid or fusoid (Ooki et al. 2003, Verkley 1999).

Fig. 1. The best-scoring RAxML maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree based on a combined ITS, LSU, and RPB2 sequence dataset. Strain/culture numbers are given following the taxon names. The newly generated sequences are in bold. Bootstrap support values for maximum likelihood >60% are given near the nodes. The tree is rooted with Loramyces macrosporus (CBS 235.53).