Pseudopeyronellaea L.W. Hou, L. Cai & Crous, gen. nov.
Index Fungorum number: MB833500; Facesoffungi number: FoF
Etymology: Name refers to the morphological similarity with the genus Peyronellaea.
Ascomata pseudothecial, globose, pyriform, superficial, with central papillate ostiole, lacking setae; wall of multi-layered.
Pseudoparaphyses absent. Asci bitunicate, narrowly ellipsoid to subcylindrical, 8-spored. Ascospores bi- to triseriate, hyaline, ovate to fusoid, prominently guttulate with mucoid sheath, widest just above septum, ends subobtusely rounded. Asexual morph unknown.
Type species: Pseudopeyronellaea eucalypti (Crous & M.J. Wingf.) L.W. Hou et al.
Notes: – Species of Peyronellaea are characterised by producing pycnidial conidiomata with phialidic conidiogenous cells as well as dictyochlamydospores, having both transverse and longitu- dinal septa (Aveskamp et al. 2009a). Later, Peyronellaea was synonymised with Didymella (Chen et al. 2015) after phyloge- netic analysis. In the present study, Peyronellaea eucalypti that was collected from leaves of Eucalyptus pellita (Myrtaceae), with only a sexual morph observed in culture, is phylogeneti- cally distant from the Didymella clade and other known genera of Didymellaceae. Therefore, a new genus Pseudopeyronellaea is introduced to accommodate Peyronellaea eucalypti. Morphologically, Pseudopeyronellaea differs from Didymella by producing bi- to triseriate, ovate to fusoid and prominently guttulate ascospores with mucoid sheaths, while ascospores of Didymella species are biseriate, ellipsoidal to cymbiform (Chen et al. 2015).
Species