Velutinus N. Wu & Jian K. Liu,
MycoBank number: MB 901518, Facesoffungi number: FoF 15233
Etymology — Referring to the texture of conidiomata such as “velvety”.
Saprobic on dead branches in terrestrial habitats. Sexual morph: Not observed. Asexual morph: Hyphomycetous. Conidiomata sporodochial, solitary, scattered, convex, spherical, dark brown to black, glistening, velvety. Mycelium mostly immersed, hyaline to pale brown hyphae. Conidiophores hyaline, cylindrical, straight or slightly curved, smooth, septate, unbranched, constricted at septa, guttulate, covered with a sheath. Conidiogenous cells monoblastic, holoblastic, integrated, terminal. Conidia acrogenous, hyaline to pale brown, spherical or subglobose, septate, eguttulate, smooth, cheiroid, eccentric, conidium-complex, arranged in branched chains, bearing basal appendages.
Type species — Velutinus sichuanensis N. Wu & Jian K. Liu
Notes — Phylogenetic analyses based on ITS and LSU sequence data showed that our two collections of Velutinus formed an independent clade in Patellariopsidaceae and present as a sister group to Patellariopsis with 100% maximum likelihood bootstrap and 1.00 Bayesian posterior probability support. Velutinus is morphologically similar to Patellariopsis and Cheirospora in having sporodochial, solitary conidiomata and acropetal, thick-walled, dark brown, septate, eguttulate, smooth, cheiroid conidia arranged in branched chains. However, Velutinus differs from Patellariopsis and Cheirospora in having convex, velvety conidiomata and septate, guttulate, unbranched conidiophores covered with a sheath, and hyaline to pale brown, ellipsoidal conidia with basal appendages. In contrast, the latter two genera have narrower conidiophores lacking gelatinous sheath and smaller conidia without basal appendage. In addition, Cheirospora is phylogenetically distinct from Velutinus as they are distributed in different families.
Species