Rhamphoriaceae Réblová, Mycologia: 110(4):750–770 (2018)

MycoBank number: MB 823918; Index Fungorum number: IF 823918; Facesoffungi number: FoF 06880; 17 species.

Saprobes on wood. Sexual morph: Ascomata perithecial, immersed or particularly erumpent becoming superficial, papillate or with a central cylindrical or rostrate neck. Ostiole periphysate. Peridium leathery to fragile, comprising two layers. Paraphyses consisting of septate, cylindrical paraphyses. Asci 8-spored, unitunicate, cylindrical or cylindrical-clavate, persistent, with a J-, apical ring. Ascospores overlapping uniseriate, hyaline or brown, ellipsoidal, obovoid, clavate, fusiform to fusiform-clavate, dictyoseptate or transversely septate, lacking mucilaginous sheaths or appendages, in some species ascospores may produce ascoconidia while in the asci (e.g. Rhamphoria pyriformis). Asexual morph: Hyphomycetous. Conidiophores macronematous or semi-macronematous, mononematous or loosely fasciculate. Conidiogenous cells producing conidia holoblastically, conidial secession rhexolytic on sympodially extending polyblastic conidiogenous cells, or schizolytic on monoblastic conidiogenous cells. Conidia hyaline (Rhamphoria, Rhamphoriopsis, Rhodoveronaea and Xylolentia) or brown (Linkosia multiseptum), aseptate or septate (adapted from Réblová & Štěpánek 2018).

Type genusRhamphoria Niessl

Notes – Rhamphoriaceae was introduced by Réblová & Štěpánek (2018) with Rhamphoria as the type genus and included the genera Rhamphoriopsis, Rhodoveronaea, Xylolentia and a dematiaceous hyphomycete Linkosia multiseptum. They formed a monophyletic clade with high statistical support based on a combined dataset of SSU, LSU and rpb2 sequences. Munk (1957) placed Rhamphoria in the subfamily Rhamphorioidae of the Diaporthaceae based on morphology. However, the position of Rhamphoria in the Sordariomycetes was uncertain (Lumbsch & Huhndorf 2010). A strongly supported monophyletic clade based on LSU sequence data of Rhamphoria delicatula and Rhodoveronaea varioseptata was recovered and selected as members of the Sordariomycetidae (Réblová 2009). Despite Rhamphoria and Rhodoveronaea differing in sexual characters, their asexual morphs are similar dematiaceous hyphomycetes with same mode of conidiogenesis.

These genera (except for Linkosia) share a few features such as perithecial ascomata, absence of stromatic tissues or clypeus, similar anatomy of the two-layered peridium, unitunicate, pedicellate asci with a J-, apical ring, cylindrical paraphyses and dictyoseptate or transversely septate ascospores (Réblová & Štěpánek 2018). Linkosia multiseptum, on the other hand, lacks conidiophores, has distoseptate, thick-walled conidia and ampulliform, monoblastic conidiogenous cells. Based on the morphology, it is unexpected to place L. multiseptum in Rhamphoriaceae. Shenoy et al. (2006) suggested that Linkosia (Hernández-Gutiérrez & Sutton 1997) is polyphyletic, based on LSU sequence data. The most similar relatives of Rhamphoriaceae are members of the Sporidesmiaceae (Su et al. 2016b).