Sydowiellaceae Lar.N. Vassiljeva, Pirenomits. Lokuloaskomits. Severa Dal’nego Vostoka (Leningrad): 210 (1987)
MycoBank number: MB 81867; Index Fungorum number: IF 81867; Facesoffungi number: FoF 06882; 47 species.
Saprobic or parasitic on plant matter. Sexual morph: Stromata well- or poorly developed, prosenchymatous, scattered, immersed to erumpent, appearing as an aggregation of ostioles, rounded or elliptic, dark brown to black, composed of compact pseudoparenchymatous tissues, several ascoma in a stroma, some species turning umber in 5% KOH. Ascomata solitary or aggregated, immersed or erumpent, globose to subglobose, sometimes circinate, coriaceous, with central or asymmetrically located ostiolar canal opening through an individual or converged ostiole, internally covered by filamentous, hyaline periphyses, sometime ostiolar opening wider than canal, black to brown. Peridium comprising a few layers of brown, thick-walled cells of textura angularis. Paraphyses cellular, septate, branched, hyaline. Asci 8-spored, unitunicate, cylindrical to subglobose, short pedicellate, apex blunt, with J-, apical ring. Ascospores uni- to multi-seriate, hyaline, pale brown to dark brown, filamentous, ellipsoid or long fusoid-cylindrical, 1–11-septate, sometimes with apical and basal appendages, wall smooth or verruculose ornamentation. Asexual morph: Coelomycetous. Conidiomata sometimes stromatic, pycnidia, uniloculate, superficial, aggregated 3–5 in one group, globose, orange to brown. Conidiomatal wall comprising thick- walled, orange cells of textura angularis. Conidiophores elongate, branched, hyaline, few conidiogenous cells arising from one conidiophore, attached to conidiomatal wall. Conidiogenous cells cylindrical, hyaline, ampulliform, septate, ends pointed, phialidic. Conidia ovoid to ellipsoid, unicellular, hyaline, smooth-walled.
Type genus – Sydowiella Petr.
Notes – Vasilyeva (1987) introduced this family to accommodate an assortment of diversified taxa. Vasilyeva (2001) and Kruys & Castlebury (2012) introduced several genera to this family. Senanayake et al. (2017b) revised this family and introduced several genera and species following a phylogenetic analysis. Voglmayr & Mehrabi (2018) accommodated Caudospora in this family introducing C. iranica as new species. Currently this family comprises 16 genera.