Tirisporellaceae Suetrong, E.B.G. Jones & K.L. Pang, Cryptog. Mycol. 36(3): 323 (2015)

MycoBank number: MB 812184; Index Fungorum number: IF 812184; Facesoffungi number: FoF 01413; 3 species.

Saprobic on submerged substrates in freshwater or brackish habitats. Sexual morph: Ascomata solitary or gregarious, partially immersed to superficial, globose to subglobose, black, and coriaceous to carbonaceous, papillate, ostiolate, with a neck and periphyses. Peridium thick- walled, brown to black. Paraphyses early deliquescent, irregularly wide, septate, hyaline, tapering towards the apices and embedded in a mucilaginous matrix. Asci 8-spored, unitunicate, cylindrical to clavate, indistinctly pedicellate, apex with a J-, subapical ring. Ascospores uniseriate or bi-seriate to tri-seriate, hyaline to brown, 1–7-septate, fusoid, falcate to lunate, straight or curved, cell wall smooth or verrucose, with or without appendages. Asexual morph: Hyphomycetous. Conidiophores macronematous, mononematous, erect, pale brown to brown, paler toward the apex, straight or flexuous, smooth. Conidiogenous cells enteroblastic, monophialidic, integrated on hyphae, terminal, sometimes erect on hyphae, pale brown, subcylindrical, ampulliform. Conidia unicellular, hyaline, fusoid-ellipsoid, obovoid or ellipsoid, apex obtuse or broadly rounded, tapering to a truncate base, smooth-walled (adapted from Suetrong et al. 2015).

Type genus – Tirisporella E.B.G. Jones, K.D. Hyde & Alias

Notes – Tirisporellaceae was established by Suetrong et al. (2015) to accommodate the genera, Tirisporella and Thailandiomyces, based on morphology and molecular phylogeny. Subsequently, Abdel-Wahab et al. (2017) introduced Bacusphaeria (type species: B. nypae), which formed a distinct clade in this family. Tirisporellaceae retains its uniqueness in having large, black perithecial ascomata with an ostiolate neck, a thick-walled peridium, cylindrical asci and 2–3- seriate, 1–7-septate, fusoid ascospores, with or without appendages. Sequence data are available for the three genera of this family and phylogenetic analyses confirmed their placement in Tirisporellales (Jones et al. 2015). Hyde et al. (2017a) carried out divergence estimates of Sordariomycetes and estimated the stem age of Tirisporellaceae as 112 MYA.

Species