Schizoparmaceae Rossman, D.F. Farr & Castl., Mycoscience 48(3): 137 (2007)
MycoBank number: MB 82150; Index Fungorum number: IF 82150; Facesoffungi number: FoF 04613; 57 species.
Saprobic, endophytic, parasitic or pathogenic on fruits, leaves, stems, and roots of wide variety of woody and herbaceous plants, and in soil. Sexual morph: Ascomata perithecial, solitary, when collapsed collabent, scattered, subepidermal, erumpent to superficial, globose, coriaceous, brown to black, papillate, with periphysate ostiole in the center. Peridium of thick-walled, brown cells of textura angularis. Paraphyses lacking. Asci 8-spored, unitunicate, clavate to subcylindrical, sessile, with a J-, apical ring, floating free at maturity. Ascospores biseriate, hyaline, becoming pale brown at maturity, ellipsoidal, aseptate, with or without mucoid caps. Asexual morph: Coelomycetous. Conidiomata pycnidial, subepidermal, immersed to semi-immersed, erumpent, unilocular, globose, slightly depressed globose to subglobose, glabrous, brown to dark brown or black, ostiolate. Peridium of irregularly thickened, with plate-like orientation, comprising brown cells of textura angularis. Conidiophores densely aggregated, simple or branched at base, occasionally septate, smooth, hyaline, subulate, invested in mucus, developing from basal pad.
Conidiogenous cells phialidic, often annellidic, subcylindrical, obclavate or lageniform, discrete, hyaline, smooth, proliferating percurrently, or with prominent periclinical thickening. Conidia hyaline, becoming olivaceous brown to brown at maturity, unicellular, smooth, thin- or thick- walled, ellipsoid, globose, napiform, fusiform or naviculate with a truncate base and an obtuse to apiculate apex, at times with a longitudinal germ slit, with or without a mucoid appendage (adapted from Rossman et al. 2007).
Type genus – Coniella Höhn.
Notes – Schizoparmaceae was introduced by Rossman et al. (2007) to accommodate Schizoparme and the asexual genera Coniella and Pilidiella (Rossman et al. 2007, Alvarez et al. 2016). Species of Schizoparmaceae are common in both tropical and temperate regions, worldwide (Rossman et al. 2007). Initially, the species in this family were placed in Melanconidaceae. Following Castlebury et al. (2002), who established the name ‘Schizoparme complex’ and their distinct lineage in Diaporthales, many comprehensive studies were conducted on the family (van Niekerk et al. 2004, Rossman et al. 2007, Alvarez et al. 2016). Even though, the family was established with three genera (Coniella, Pilidiella and Schizoparme), and after several taxonomic refinements, the family currently comprises a single genus (van Niekerk et al. 2004, Rossman et al. 2007, Alvarez et al. 2016). Based on the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (McNeil et al. 2012), Alvarez et al. (2016) synonymized Pilidiella and Schizoparme under the accepted generic name Coniella. Schizoparmaceae has a stem age at 70 MYA (Hongsanan et al. 2017). However, authors have mentioned that the data set used in the study was not sufficient to represent this morphologically diverse family. Most of the previous studies of this genus used single gene phylogenies of ITS and LSU for species delimitation (Castlebury et al. 2002, van Niekerk et al. 2004, Miranda et al. 2012). This approach is accepted for the preliminary identification. Confusions and inconsistencies in this method were addressed by multigene phylogenetic approach used in Alvarez et al. (2016) and Chethana et al. (2017). Therefore, it is recommended to use ITS, LSU, tef1, rpb2 and histone (selection of 4 genes) in combined analyses (Fig. 227) to resolve Coniella species (Alvarez et al. 2016, Chethana et al. 2017).
Genera